


The Best Possible Ending

by DweebicusMaximus



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AUs will be briefly mentioned but they're not like...a thing, Characters die but resets nullify it, Grillby is trans because I'm trans and I say so, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, I’ve written out a literal fucking questline for this, Multi, Mute Frisk, NB frisk, OH GOD WHY, Sans Has Issues, Selectively Mute Grillby, Trans Grillby, Veteran Grillby (Undertale), also not everyone has one and that’s fine, details will be sparing to not be triggering to me or other survivors, game mechanics, grillby was a soldier, heart events, once again details will be few and far between, questlines, sans is a recovering addict, sans is a recovering alcoholic, shocker but frisk had a bad childhood, soulmates are a thing but not the main focus of this, the war was not that long ago
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2019-09-05 03:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 40,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16802389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DweebicusMaximus/pseuds/DweebicusMaximus
Summary: Frisk remembers every reset. Every three-year loop. At the end of it, Sans dies.Frisk isn’t okay with that. Frisk is determined to make it stop.It’s impossible, as far as they know, but that’s never stopped them before.They're determined to get the best possible ending.Focuses on Alphys, Grillby and Frisk





	1. Triptych

Alphys was asleep and in that sleep she dreamt she was in agony. She tried to move, to call out for help; anything to save her from the pain, but there was no reprieve.

After forever, or perhaps sooner, there was a voice above her; Why was Sans here, in this painful place?

They had done something. They had gotten complacent. It had gone wrong. Above her, Sans’ voice came into focus.

“-And I’ve killed her!”

She was sure she had missed the rest of the conversation. Who was Sans talking to? There was silence.

Then, there was light.

Alphys woke with a start to the chime of a new text on her phone. She wiped her snout with a hand and took stock of her dream as she resettled her glasses firmly on her face.

_It’s classic survivor’s guilt. Wishful thinking._

She shook her head to clear the thoughts that followed. Wishing wouldn’t change the fact that Sans was the one who got hurt that day. That his life had been changed instead of hers.

Her phone chimed again, and once more.

SS: hey alph

SS: i know you’re not home yet, buti figured i’d tell you now

SS: had to expend a lot of magic at grillby’s today to kick out some rowdy humans. figure you’d need to do some tests to make sure i’m not dying.

She sighed and took a note.

Another text came in and she glanced over it, smiling weakly.

SS: any faster than i already am, i mean

A: umm, probably. are you feeling any worse?

A: take some adrenaline if you need to. will you be okay?

SS: yeah, i’m okay. i was able to walk them back home but i’m lying down now.

A: i’m leaving the lab soon. kinda fell asleep doing some paperwork

SS: k

SS: see you soon

A: is Undyne home?

SS: yeah she’s passed out on the couch with the kid

Alphys grinned as she swiped all of her paperwork into a file, ignoring the sound of crumpling paper, and placed the whole mess into the bag.

A: omg that’s so cute

A: send me a picture

A: pls

And she started the walk home.

-

Grillby smiled, watching his lover doze off in his armchair. He only took a moment before he went back to preparing a late meal for the doctor.

After setting the pasta to drain, he stripped off the gloves and checked the time.

About eleven. Grillby sighed. He would need to rest soon. He would have to carry Sans up the stairs to their bedroom; if he left Sans where he was he would wake up with back pain.

Grillby put his gloves back on and went to work, trying to ignore the sudden gnawing guilt for Sans’ exhaustion.

If he had been more assertive, Sans wouldn’t have needed to use so much of his magic.

_Sans is sick and he had to waste his precious energy protecting me. I shouldn’t have let it get that bad. I-_

He was startled by the sound of the front door opening. He stuck his head out of the kitchen and waved at Alphys. He removed his gloves again and signed.

“I was hoping to have this done by the time you got home. It’ll only be a few minutes.”

She nodded and grinned at her sleeping girlfriend. Grillby had turned the tv off when he and Sans had gotten home. He’d found a blanket to cover them with too.

He returned to the kitchen, adding the sauce to the pasta and stirring it for a minute. Alphys joined him.

“Where’s Papyrus?” She asked after a second. He gestured upwards.

“Oh, did Sans manage to get him to sleep?” Grillby nodded.

Papyrus has been awake for three days. Alphys had asked Sans to step in and while neither of them understood how, they knew Sans could handle it.

Grillby finished stirring the pasta and got her a plate. She ate in silence as he started cleaning up. After ten minutes, he turned the tap off and, seeing his hands were free, she asked a question.

“So, what happened today? Sans said you had some trouble with humans.”

“Oh. Yes. They were fine at first, but...once I started closing up, things went poorly. They refused to leave and...they began to call me a demon to insult me. They threw things, made quite a mess of the place.”

She chewed slowly as she weighed her next question.

“I-it’s not important, but...um...are you...?” She asked, stretching out the end of her sentence. He sighed, half-turning away from her.

“A demon? No.”

“Oh, cool, sorry. I-I was just...”

“I understand the confusion.”

She could see the rebuke in his movements and tried to return to the previous topic.

“That sounds awful...I’m so sorry you had to deal with that.”

“It’s okay. I...didn’t really deal with it. Sans did.”

“Well...but it’s still upsetting. Really upsetting. Were you hurt?”

“Only by a few points. Nothing too serious.”

She finished the pasta and waved him away from the sink with a ‘thanks’. He left the kitchen. The sound of running or dripping water always freaked him out; whether due to rational fear or trauma she had never felt comfortable asking. She knew he had, through some unspecified trauma, been rendered selectively mute.

Once she was done her dishes, she went into the living room to check up on Sans. Grillby stood next to him, gently stroking his skull as if to soothe him. She frowned when she saw how bad Sans was shaking.

“Sans said he was able to walk you home. Did he seem okay...? Could he walk alright, was he dizzy, off-balance?”

Grillby turned toward her to sign.

“Is Sans ill? More than he usually is?I-“

“No, it’s not a big deal, I think? Unless the answer to those questions was yes.”

“No, he seemed fine. A little tired, but he is always a little tired.”

She nodded.

“I guess he just needs heat and sleep, then. Don’t forget to get him in stasis; he needs rest before he can break down food again.” He nodded, already scooping the sleepy skeleton into his arms.

As he started up the stairs, Alphys called out.

“Wait!” He turned, an air of impatience around him.

“Thanks for making me dinner.” He smiled, and, unable to sign, settled for a sort of bow before continuing the trek.

Getting the clamp on Sans was a challenge; when Grillby managed to wake him, he didn’t stay lucid enough to summon his soul, or even to understand the request.

Finally, he sighed and undid Sans’ shirt. He stared at the exposed ribcage and muttered an apology to his lover. He didn’t like invading Sans’ privacy this way, but the clamp had to go on.

He got the clamp ready first, so he wouldn’t have to touch it for too long, and then dipped his hand into the chest cavity, affixing the device as fast as possible. Sans’ soul was enveloped by a white membrane and his breathing slowed. Stopped altogether. His right arm and jaw both became untethered and were set aside to be reattached when he’d built his reserves back up.

Grillby crawled under the covers and let his form disperse over Sans. He finally slept.

-

Frisk heard Alphys and Grillby talk about Sans’ illness and willed themself to seem unconscious while they eavesdropped.

Alphys and Grillby said goodnight and they tried to keep themself from groaning with impatience when Alphys didn’t immediately go up to bed. Frisk heard her claws heading towards the couch and kept their breathing even. Alphys kissed Undyne’s cheek and whispered a goodnight before following Grillby upstairs.

Frisk waited. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Fifteen more. An hour.

But nobody came.

Frisk began to move from under Undyne’s arm slowly, moving first their legs, then their arms and finally, their body.

Once extracted, they covered Undyne back up, hoping she wouldn’t get cold and wake up. That she wouldn’t come looking for them.

Their hand went to the pendant they had made. From it hung three things: a heart-shaped locket, a bronze key and a silver key. They pulled the whole thing off their neck and selected the silver key.

Around the back of the house, they found the door to Sans’ workshop and slid the key in. They’d been in and out a million times. Enough to form an order.

First, the desk. A quick glance around the desk turned up nothing new. They had become more familiar with the special mix of cipher and jargon Sans wrote in, but were no closer to decoding it. They copied a few more lines onto a sticky note.

Next, the drawers.

They found the album and took a second to flip through it. They had a sudden and uncomfortable realization once they saw the last photo and flipped around to confirm it.

There was definitely something strange about the angle on some of them, and the new photo proved it. They flipped back to it and smiled, despite their realization.

Sans was down on one knee, holding a small box with a ring in it aloft. The ring wasn’t visible in the picture, but they saw it often enough. Grillby looked so happy, covering their mouth with one hand and reaching toward the ring, as if to confirm it was real.

Frisk knew that they were alone when it happened. Just the two of them.

They also knew it was possible Sans had somehow set a camera up to catch his expression, but it was pretty unlikely that he could have done it without Grillby noticing.

It was the perfect candid shot. There were fourteen other pictures from impossible angles in this album alone, each catching an event just as unlikely as the proposal.

The drawing was one they had never seen before and they took a second to commit it to memory since they couldn’t take it with them.

Sans? A skeleton in black. It held a cigarette. Two smaller figures; a human holding their hands behind their back. They had a crude, wide smile on their face. The second was easily recognizable, despite how poorly drawn it was.

_Asriel. Why Asriel? What did he have to do with Sans?_

The same words as always. “Don’t forget.”

Frustrated, they considered tearing the drawing up, but restrained themself. It must have been a clue. Besides, they had worked so hard to avoid leaving evidence up until now.

Next, the machine. Frisk lifted the cover and sighed. It was one of those weapons. At least, they were sure it was a weapon; they had only seen it summoned once, when Sans was very angry, and he’d been careful to hide them since.

It hadn’t changed. It never changed. They didn’t know why they even bothered checking.

They thought about it. The only time they’d seen one active was in here, as well. Did they only exist here? Were they supposed to protect the workshop?

Frisk ran their hand through their hair, trying to make sense of their findings.

Maybe there was nothing here. In two months, Sans would start to die and they’d wasted precious time in this completely useless little Easter egg.

They shook their head. It was one of three places with strong ties to Sans. There had to be something in one of them. And if there wasn’t, they’d restart and they’d restart until they found the quest that would let them save him.

They let that knowledge fill them with DETERMINATION.


	2. The Inevitable

Cycle one.

Sans was sick. Everyone could tell. He’d gotten sick and he wouldn’t get better, no matter how hard Alphys tried. His injury had finally driven him to Hopelessness and there was nothing she could do for him. What do you do for a patient who doesn’t want to recover? Magic only works if you want it to.

“It’s not your fault.” He said once, his head turned away from her.

She was quiet and he stood, grabbing her hands and staring at her.

 _“It’s not_. You did everything right.”

“I must have done something wrong. Everything else in your life is perfect. There’s no way anyone else is making you feel like this.” Sans sighed and sat back down, gesturing for her to sit beside him.

“You’re right. Everything is...as perfect as real life gets. That’s the problem. Alphys, I’ve done...some terrible things. The guilt eats away at me day and night and...if you knew what I’d done, things would be different. I don’t deserve to be happy with all of you as long as I’m keeping this secret, but... I don’t want to lose you. How selfish is that?”

“I’m sure I could forgive you, Sans. I’m sure everyone could. After all, they forgave me. And...well, I’m trying to do that too.”

“This is worse than what you did.”

“Worse than unethical experiments on dying people and trapping dozens of monsters in an underground lab?”

“Yes.”

Alphys wasn’t sure she believed him, and asked, half-laughing, “Who’d you kill, then?”

Sans didn’t laugh, just stared down at his clasped hands.

“You’ll find out what I did soon enough, Alphys. I just want you to know that this isn’t your fault. I don’t want any of you blaming yourselves for what happens.”

Those words brought up an unpleasant memory and she put an arm around his shoulders.

“Sans, um...I’m gonna walk you home, okay? I’ll-“

“I’m not going to kill myself. I don’t need to, and...besides, it’s almost Frisk’s birthday. I want them to have a good one.”

She sighed.

“You promise? At least until then?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to miss it.”

-

Frisk had a good birthday. The best they’d ever had, despite the looming worry of Sans’ sickness. Toriel and Asgore had worked together to make their cake, and despite Toriel’s original apprehension, she seemed to calm down after a few days of planning.

Papyrus had taken it upon himself to make all of the decorations; Sans had taken it upon himself to surreptitiously fix all of them the night before.

Even Asriel- Frisk couldn’t bring themself to call him Flowey-had, briefly shown up.

Frisk got different things every reset, and it was still pretty exciting.

The next day passed uneventfully. And the day after that. The day after that.

And then Sans vanished. He’d left a note that nobody had let them read.Nobody had told them what it said, except that there was something in his lab, something that nobody else would talk about or let them experience.

Frisk poked around the lab after everyone else had gone through, but there was nothing.

They looked for him, of course, but Frisk got the sense that they were angry. That maybe they-apart from Grillby and Papyrus, who were tireless-didn’t want to find him. After only a week, tensions ran high at dinner one night.

“We don’t have any leads. This city isn’t huge and you’d think one human would remember seeing the guy, but,” Undyne shrugged, “A lot of people go missing in cities.” She looked distracted, pushing her food around her plate.

Papyrus’ jaw tightened. He spoke with a quiet fury that unsettled Frisk.

“...have you even been looking for him?”

“Of course I’m looking for him! I want some fucking answers!”

“U-Undyne-“

“We don’t even know if he’s still alive and that’s all you care about?”

Grillby looked conflicted, but didn’t sign anything.

“I-I know you’re mad, but-“

“AND YOU AREN’T? Why are all of you defending him?”

“He must have had a good reason!”

“If he had an excuse, he would have used it! He doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt! He doesn’t deserve any of us and he doesn’t deserve to be forgiven!”

Frisk knew they had to say something to break this up, but nothing came to mind. How could they respond if they didn’t know what he’d done wrong?

“Sans has been through a lot. He would not,” Grillby glanced at Frisk here, “Have done what he did for no reason. He would never have wanted to hurt us.”

“I DON’T CARE!”

“I know he did a lot of bad things, Undyne, but he has suffered enough for it.”

“It doesn’t matter! None of this matters! We can work these things out when we find him.”

“B-but we should...start thinking about the possibility that he died. I don’t know how much time he had left.”

Frisk started tearing up. They wiped their eyes, embarrassed that they’d broken down in front of everyone. They were somewhat mollified to see that Papyrus was crying too.

Grillby shook his head and reluctantly signed “Actually, we know he is still alive, as I am still alive.”

Undyne stood up from the table. For a second, it looked like she was going to punch something. She took three deep breaths, in and out, slowly, and started pacing.

“You’re soulmates?” She asked, voice filled with quiet rage.

“Yes. He didn’t want to tell you, and...considering the rest of what he kept secret, I didn’t think it was important.”

“And he just left you?”

“Of course he did. He left all of us, because he didn’t want to see how we would react.”

“B-But you’re going to die!”

“So is he. That’s how this works.”

“You need to break that bond.”

“Don’t tell me how to live my life, Undyne. This is what I signed up for when I married him.”

Undyne’s mouth opened and shut as she tried to figure out what to say next. After a minute, she relaxed and let out another long breath.

“Okay.” She said, and left the room. She left her plate, mostly untouched, on the table.

-

Two days later, Frisk found Grillby’s dust when they went to wake him. He had laid a tarp over his bed to make his funeral easier.

Later, they’d found a note to his daughter and a note asking them to mix his dust with Sans’.

There was also a bright orange soul on the tarp, tied to someone else by a shimmering red thread. They followed it to Sans’ dust. To a hovering blue soul.

Things fell apart after that. Undyne and Papyrus stopped talking, except to fight. Her and Alphys moved out. Papyrus wasn’t the same. Frisk wasn’t the same.

Frisk left the home one morning. They climbed Mt. Ebbott. And at thepeak of the mountain, they found it, where they’d left it. A little dusty, but still usable.

Their RESET option.


	3. Wait...Where Am I?

During the liminal time between resets, Frisk considered the events leading up to Sans’ death. They had no clue why, but it took the world a week to reset. A week more of life without Sans, with their family fractured. A week they used to go over everything they knew.

That first death was the last time the player had come around. They’d been relieved. They had never gotten past the year mark when the player was doing the resets.

A year and a half passed.

Undyne had gotten an apartment. Alphys had moved in with her. Sans and Grillby had been married for three months.

Frisk never was sure what happened at Sans’ house that made Undyne and Alphys quietly move in with him a few months later, but a part of them now suspected it was the first sign of Sans getting sick. Had Grillby and Papyrus needed help caring for him that early on?

“We just missed each other, is all,” Sans had answered. Lying through his teeth as always.

They had joined a few weeks after, Toriel coming to the conclusion that she was not ready to properly care for them. They understood. It wasn’t like they never saw her; Sans invited her over for dinner at least once a week.

Frisk couldn’t help but feel like it was their fault. They had saved everyone else and considered it a job well done. They assumed Sans was happier. They hadn’t really thought to check.

They thought he’d get better once the resets stopped. That brought with it another wave of guilt. They’d long suspected Sans remembered resets, even better than they did. Resets where they weren’t in control. Resets where they did terrible things. Sans had never confirmed it.

But he hadn’t denied it either, and here they were, doing what they had solemnly promised not to.

 _I’m doing it to save his life. He’ll forgive me,_ they thought, unconvincingly.

They fell asleep with that thought on the seventh day.

Frisk woke up on the side of a winding dirt road that led into a small city at the base of Mt. Ebbott. They were lying half-in a bush. Only a few feet away, there was a drop-off into a wood.

A man in a car drove past, then another. Frisk saw a familiar black sports car in the distance and stood, dusting themself off.

The car rounded a bend and flew past the unassuming stretch of road where the driver was sure he’d seen the kid standing just moments before. He squinted into the brush as he passed, but there was nothing there.

-

Grillby felt a strange sense of déjà vu as he looked into the mirror, along with an even more disconcerting sense that he had just been somewhere else. He almost remembered feeling sunlight just a few seconds earlier.

Shaking his head, he continued his morning routine.

He’d been feeling out of place since the end of the war. This was nothing new, he decided.

And that strange weight to his soul...he paused.

It didn’t just feel heavy; something was weighing it down. He sighed, feeling along his parental bond with his son, but no, he was fine. Grillby felt his own familiar confusion at Heats’ origin seeping through the bond and quickly distracted himself by feeling his bond to his daughter. Heats didn’t need to know about that.

No, Fuku was fine too.

He summoned his soul, puzzled by what felt like a new bond. He couldn’t stop the sound that escaped him when he saw it.

He heard his daughter get out of bed and hid his soul as she came into his room.

“Dad, are you okay? What was that-wow, you’re really bright. Are you alright?”

“I am...fine.” More than fine. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this happy before.

“Okay, but you said that in the least convincing way possible so I’m gonna take your temperature anyway.”

He couldn’t help but smile. He could hardly even sit still. He tried to get his mouth or hands to work to tell her the good news. His daughter noticed how much he was fidgeting.

“...okay, seriously, what happened?”

He cocked his head curiously.

“You’re lit up like the sun, your core temperature is way too high, and instead of panicking like usual, you’re grinning and bouncing around like we just won the lottery,” her eyes narrowed, “Wait...we didn’t, did we?”

“No, but it feels like I did~”

She took a second to process that.

“Okay, in a second I’ll ask how you did that with your hands, but first, why don’t you tell me what you’re so excited about?”

“I have a soulmate!” He finally managed to say, for once not caring whether or not he spoke.

For a second, Grillby could have sworn she looked sad, but her smile was so bright he had to dismiss the notion.

“Tell me everything.”

-

Alphys blinked at the skeleton that sat in her lab, feeling unnerved when she drew a blank as to why he was there. Her first thought was _isn’t he dead_ , but a second later, her memories righted themselves.

 _Not yet,_ she thought, and chastised herself for her morbid thoughts.

Her lab seemed off too, but she couldn’t put a finger on why. She was standing over her desk, looking down at the long, long file with Sans’ name on it. Nothing was out of place.

Still, she couldn’t remember what he was doing here. He was sitting on an examination table, so something must have happened.

He saw her confusion and raised an eyeridge.

“You okay, doc? You’re lookin’ a bit shaky.”

“I-I’m fine! I just...forgot what I was doing. Um, what are you here for?” She asked, trying to stay professional.

“What, did you hit your head while I wasn’t looking? You wanted to check out my new soulmate bond.”

It was like flipping a switch. She did remember that, now that he’d said it out loud.

“Oh, right...sorry, I don’t think I slept well last night.” She offered lamely.

“Oh, okay. Ya don’t have to check it out right away, you know? It seems fine and it sounds like you could use a day off.” Sans’ tone was hopeful, but she shook her head.

“N-No, it’s best to get this out of the way now. I-I’m fine.”

“If you’re sure...” Sans looked awkwardly at his feet.

“I understand you don’t like summoning your soul, but this has to happen sometime.”

Sans sighed and unzipped his hoodie, resting one hand on his sternum and focussing to make his soul visible.

Sans’ soulmate bond was automatically concerning to her. She took the soul and squinted at the bond. The other half was a little stronger than usual, but for lonely monsters that was an acceptable variation. Sans’ half was not.

It was swollen beyond belief; almost obsessively loving.

“Oh. So that’s why you didn’t want me to see.”

Sans sighed.

“Don’t...it’s not a big deal.”

“You haven’t even met them yet, have you?”

Sans stared a hole in the floor.

“No, I haven’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update; I was having a lot of trouble with Frisk’s third. In the end, I’m not very happy with it; it’s too prose-heavy with exactly 0 dialogue but I had a lot of exposition to get through. So, sorry about that, but it’s mostly over.


	4. Looper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to mention, but last chapter was the last chapter for a while where all three characters will have a section of the chapter to themselves. Chapters will go between this format and the other one as needed.

1.

Frisk woke up where they had fallen asleep beside a road. They smacked their lips and stood, trying to ignore the dryness in their mouth and the dizziness that came from two days without water.

For a minute, they watched the cars pass. They saw a black sports car, not far away, and panicked. They looked around for people, but the only people for miles had just sped by in cars of their own.

The woods? It was a long fall down. Even if they used one of the trees, even if they found a branch that supported their weight, who knew if they’d be able to get down in time?

Their thoughts moved sluggishly, and the car rolled to a stop nearby as they were thinking. They turned to run, and made it a fair distance, but the man who had chased them got a hand on their arm and didn’t let go.

They gave up the fight and let him lead them, a hand on their back, to the car. He got in the front. They got in the back. Some small part of them was almost relieved that it was already over.

 _Maybe it won’t be so bad_ , they thought.

Soon, they didn’t think anything at all.

2.

Frisk bolted upright, on their feet before they could even fully process where they were.

A calm road greeted them, only ten or so cars making their way along it.

One was a black sports car, and it sent them running for the woods.

There was no hesitation, no doubt about what they were doing. Their memories filled with a fate worse than death and they held that memory fast in their mind.

The woods, they had decided without thinking, would be safe. The man in the car-the couldn’t let themself think of him any other way, couldn’t let their past fool them again-wouldn’t find them there.

Their eyes blurred with tears, but they took their path down the tree as if they had been climbing all their life.

Even as they ran, they thought of him. Of their childhood spent in a city far, far away from where they were now, with him. Of a fate worse than death.

And despite everything, they believed that people could be good. They let that belief steady their nerves as they ran headlong into a man, and then past him, signing an apology he couldn’t see.

A man who had been brought by the sound of their bare feet breaking branches. A man they had no idea would climb up to the road and find a man beside a black sports car with a flat tire.

32.

Frisk woke. Frisk stood, and took a second to dust themself off, counting in their head all the while. Frisk jogged to the little fence bordering the woods and put one foot, then the other on the thickest branch. Their head buzzed with their lack of water, but that would be taken care of in the woods. Their pockets never reset, and Frisk had, a little uncomfortably, shoved a bottle of water into the front.

They took their practiced path, sliding down the last foot of the tree and starting the long, long walk to Ebbott city. They couldn’t help but glance up at the fence they had climbed as they left.

There was no sign that anyone had ever been there.


	5. An Angel

Grillby sits at a desk in his new room, in his new home, and opens a notebook he’s never used. He picks up a pen and writes the date. Taps the pen against the paper. Sighs.

“The therapist Fuku has me seeing asked me to start writing things down. I suppose that’s sensible; I can never remember what’s gone on in my life from week to week.

Not that it will matter. I can’t stand to talk about any of the things that bother me anyways. I can’t talk about Fuku’s mother yet, about the war, or anything else she wants to talk about.

I can’t do anything she wants me to.

I can barely bring myself to leave the house.

If I don’t get a job soon, she’ll have to go back to living with my father, but I’m useless here. There’s no need for someone like me in this new world we’ve made. Even if there really was a need for the Royal Guard, I’m supposed to stay away from combat situations.

...Well, I suppose I can always find someplace that needs a cook. It was the only thing my wife didn’t hate, so I suppose it can’t be all bad. I’ve never cooked for anyone who wasn’t family, though. The very thought makes my flame crawl.”

He stands to pace around his room, anxiety making his thoughts hard to process. He sits again when he’s calm.

“It’s not like I have to fight. I just don’t know what to do with myself if I can’t.

I wish I could go home. I knew my place there. I knew how to act and I never questioned my purpose.

I suppose they think I’m a deserter. I suppose I was a deserter but there’s no place I’d rather be now. I chose to stay in this land when we were above ground, but...

I wonder if the war we had here has spread to my home? It’s only been twenty years, but all it takes is one determined human.”

Grillby doesn’t want to think about that anymore, and he looks around his room for a distraction. It’s barren; he hasn’t even started unpacking yet. His mouth fills with the taste of dust, his nose with the smell of burning fur. He realizes that he’s too bright, too hot, and if he doesn’t calm down he’ll-

His soulmate bond pulses, sending a calmness that does not belong to him into his soul. He only tastes mint now, and the smell of burning fur is replaced with that of a lemony cleaning fluid.

He sincerely hopes his soulmate isn’t just breathing in Pinesol fumes to calm him down.

He takes in deep, scented breaths until his flame has calmed. When the taste of mint lessens, he realizes his soulmate was probably brushing their teeth.

Not the most elegant solution, but it worked.

 _And now I know they take care of their teeth,_ he thought with an embarrassed chuckle.

He crosses the four tick marks on a separate sheet with a fifth.

Five already? _They’re getting worse,_ he can’t help thinking.

“They’re getting worse,” he writes, knowing his therapist won’t approve, “Thank the gods for my soulmate, whoever they may be.”

He turns a page and pauses in the action, not realizing how much he’d already written. It turned out that when he could, he had a lot to say. He wonders if they know he can’t speak. He hopes that once he has someone to talk to, he won’t be like this.

-

Frisk sets up shop in a village just outside of Ebbott city, carefully selecting which abandoned house they would set up in. They had chosen the hunter’s home last time and had hated the way that the wind went through it at night. The sight of weapons that had been used to kill so many innocent monsters.

They assumed the insulation had burned up; when they finally did get into Ebbott city, Ruth would talk about the war, about a fiery angel who razed the surrounding villages. She spoke of human shadows immortalized in black ash, of entrapped spirits begging for mercy in the night.

The shadows were true enough, and the first time Frisk had seen them, they had been ill. Frisk had never heard anything supernatural in all their resets and had relaxed eventually.

Frisk climbs Mt. Ebbott the next morning, collecting small sticks, rocks and plants. A small fish from a clear mountain river joins them.

They set up a fire pit to cook the fish and, with a guilty glance around their new home, create a tiny flame with a spark of magic.

Frisk knows the way people on the surface treat humans who can do magic, even after monsters come to the surface.

Frisk is an expert on taking care of themself. An expert on being alone. But even they have to admit, they had gotten used to their huge family, to Toriel and Asgore’s diplomatically planned weekly dinners.

Now, there was nobody with them. Nobody to talk to, and so they do what they always do.

They plan ahead, detaching themself from the events that would take place, had taken place so many times.

-

It has been a long week. Frisk walks into Ebbott city, muscles sore from re-acclimatizing to such intense physical labour. They only have enough money for bus fare, and a few days of begging ahead of them in the city.

Another thing they have is an intense need for a new sweater. It had torn yesterday as they were fishing and they’d spent the night miserable and shivering in it.

This always happened, and they knew it was coming, but they can’t help wondering if the underground would react the same when they show up in their ratty, oversized green and yellow striped sweater.

Frisk wipes sweat from their eyes as they trudge into the city. Nights up in the mountains get cold, but under the light of the sun, Frisk feels like they’re baking.

They pass a few familiar shops. They usually have no need for the grocer’s; Nathan’s quest line goes nowhere interesting, and helping him doesn’t take long. Neither does the beekeeper’s, or that of her florist husband. What they really need is Ruth’s.

But to get there, they first need to become known around the neighbourhood as helpful. Kind, empathetic. So they spend a minute standing outside Nathan’s little shop, making a show of reading a poster for a missing cat. They find a cat carrier in a dumpster.

Mitzy almost seems to remember them, and comes quietly.

They make their first foray into Ruth’s home.

They knock on the door, hear the quiet “Just a minute!”.

And then she is there. Heavy brows, round ice-coloured eyes.A kind voice with a tremor in it.

“Oh, hello dear! I haven’t seen you around before. What-oh!” Her hand goes to her mouth, only half-covering a poorly healed scar.

“Is that my darling Mitzy you have?” Frisk nods, biting back the familiar grimace at the phrase darling. Oh, she’d behaved this time, but that cat fought like the devil the first few times.

“Wherever did you find her? Her brother and I have been worried sick!” Ruth takes the carrier, thankfully freeing Frisk’s hands.

“She was sitting outside a butcher’s shop, meowing and scratching to get in.”

“Oh, you poor sweet thing.” She says, and Frisk smiles, realizing for the first time that Ruth isn’t looking at Mitzy when she says it.

Ruth takes a moment to size Frisk up, then holds her door open.

“Would you like to come inside? It’s quite hot out there. I’ve just put some tea on.”

Frisk tried not to seem to excited by the prospect as they went through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh...been a while. I’ve been trying to focus on my novel and my sort of visual art? Wouldn’t exactly call it art, but I’ve been trying. Also, uh, fistfighting depression about my...everything. Hopefully stuff gets better


	6. The First Fallen Human

“I need a human SOUL.” Alphys says, her voice already trembling. She grimaces, shakes her head, and watches her mirrored reflection do the same.

“N-no, that won’t do.” She clears her throat and tries again.

“I need a human SOUL.” She nods, almost satisfied with the result, and waits a beat, as if waiting for a response to her request.

“I want to study what makes a human’s soul stay after death. I have a hypothesis...” she trails off, rethinks her words, “I have a theory that what keeps a human soul alive is the same thing that causes a human or monster to respawn. I-if I can isolate it...”

She’s sure of her theory, but pauses again, worried she won’t be able to explain it without breaking patient confidence.

Sans’ abilities were the biggest scientific discovery she had ever made, but she had promised him she wouldn’t tell anyone. And yes, Sans had made sure she knew that meant the king too.

And he was the cornerstone of her theory. Why she had made it in the first place.

She realized she was spacing out again, and made herself refocus on the mirror.

“If I can isolate it, I might be able to synthesize it, and...this could be the solution to all those monsters falling from Hopelessness!” Another planned pause.

“Don’t worry, I know to be careful with it. I’ll only do tests I’d feel comfortable doing with my living patients. If there’s any sign that something I’m doing might damage it, I’ll skip that. And if you get six more souls, then I’ll give it back right away, of course.” Alphys sighed.

“I will not do anything to jeopardize our freedom.”

-

Frisk hears footsteps on gravel and flinches.

 _Not fast enough_ , they chastised themself, and turned to face the human who had climbed halfway up Mt. Ebbott.

It’s a kid they’ve never seen before.

She clutches a notebook and looks down on them through a pair of familiar eyeglasses. Frisk automatically dislikes her, but they try their best not to think ill of the dead.

“You’re a mage, aren’t you?” She asks, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

“Yes.”

“Is it true that monsters live under this mountain?”

Frisk nods, knowing there is no reason to lie. No matter what Frisk says, she will climb this mountain. That is how it always is.

She stares up the mountain, for a moment seeming wistful. Her expression hardens when she remembers Frisk is still there.

“Mage, do you know any,” her eyes cloud again, “Healing magic?” Frisk sighs.

“No. Not the kind you’re looking for. I could heal a cut. A fracture, maybe, if it was mild. But if you’re desperate enough to turn to magic, it’s beyond me. I’m sorry.”

She sniffs primly and turns to hide her disappointment.

“Well then, what use are you?”

Frisk tries not to roll their eyes, and points to one of the paths.

“Take that one, if you’re going.”

They leave, ignoring the quest updating itself. They already know what comes next.

-

The meeting goes surprisingly well. Asgore makes tea. He listens to her speak, and drains his cup without interruption.

He looked so sad, so tired. Then again, he has since the day Ch*ra and Asriel died.

Her internal speech box seems off for a second, but he finally sighs and she forgets about that for now.

“You have some solid reasoning. I trust you to treat them with respect. Let’s get this done, then.”

She follows him into the basement, shivering at both the cold and the heaviness of the air down the stairs. It hit her halfway down and she could barely bring herself all the way to the bottom.

The king gestures to it; just a plain cylinder of glass, somehow all that was needed to contain a human’s SOUL. Alphys can’t help but feel like she’s seen it before.

“That’s it?” She asks, wincing as her voice echoes around the chamber. Asgore looks at her like she’s done something wrong, but nods, picking it up under one arm and carrying it up the stairs for her.

She insists she can get it back to her lab, she doesn’t need his help, thank you very much, your highness.

 _I ought to hide my fanfiction better_ , she thinks, wishing the thing wasn’t as tall as she is.

Once it’s finally in her lab, she she walks down the stairs to where the Riverperson is always waiting. She likes to visit the wishing room before starting any new scientific endeavour.

As she steps onto the boat, they speak.

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

She gets the feeling that, for the first time, they’re really talking to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? Two in a week? What am I, a functional person?


	7. Use

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY GUESS WHAT DUMBASS MIXED UP THE ORDER OF HIS CHAPTERS!!!!!!!!!!! So I guess you get two in two days

Alphys nervously presses the needle into the fleshy membrane of the soul. Its tangerine surface first depresses, then breaks to accommodate the needle. She takes a sample of the dark red fluid inside.

She puts the sample down and runs a claw over the heart-shaped organ. When she’s done, the hole is gone.

The fluid goes onto a slide, the slide under a microscope. Another sample sits nearby, from another source. She ignores the fact that this new fluid is much darker than her original sample, because if she’s wrong, if this soul’s fluid is too decomposed for research...of course, even then she has her ways.

Specializing in medical necromancy has its perks. Like her second sample.

See, nobody knows what keeps a monster going after its death, after its body rots away. It goes against everything known about monsters that one, much less hundreds of individual species, should get a fragile second wind.

But in each undead monster she’s examined there have been higher amounts of this unidentifiable red fluid than in regular monsters. Most monsters don’t have _any,_ but certain boss monsters have it in trace amounts. Boss monsters, who often have multiple phases that activate after a death or a lot of damage. Some of whom have a powered-up respawn.

Sans has more than any other monster, but she was worried taking even this small sample. If this was what had kept him alive for so long, taking too much might kill him.

She switches the samples back and forth; Sans’, then the human’s, and is relatively satisfied that they are the same substance.

She hopes for another human soon.

-

Frisk is tired of rats, but rats are what they keep getting in Nathan’s quests.

“I don’t know what’s happened!” He says, gesturing heatedly at the chewed-up produce on his counter.

“I think it’s rats.” Frisk says, wrinkling their nose.

Usually the pests are more varied, but it’s been rats all the way down this time. The old warehouse that hadn’t been filling his orders? Rats. The noises in the ceiling he was sure were ghosts? Rats. The other sounds he was sure meant someone had started secretly living in his shop? You guessed it: rats.

“I haven’t seen any, though. That’s part of the problem...what if it’s something smarter? What if I have goblins or something in my shop at night?”

Frisk bites back a sigh by thinking about how close he and Grillby will eventually get.

“I don’t think its goblins.”

“It’s usually rats, I know, but I just don’t understand where they’re coming from!”

Frisk’s quest updates: **Find the source of the vermin!** It tells them.

They bite their lip. They’ve prepared for this, but they can never be sure they have enough healing items for their first encounter with Asnoch.

-

Grillby’s cousins are strange to him still.

 _I’ve been away for too long,_ he thinks, staring at Blasè on the other side of the door.

“Hey, cuz! How’s it going?”

He shrugs.

“Better than you were, huh? But still a little off?”

“I suppose so.” He says, opening the door for Blasè to come in.”

“Yeah, it can be confusing when your whole plan for life gets taken from you.”

“Yes. I have no clue what I am going to do now. I suppose I will have to hope I meet my soulmate and I can go back to what I expected to happen.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“I’ve never thought about it. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

Blasè sits at the coffee table and taps his claws on the surface, unsure how to respond.

“Well, uh, since that doesn’t seem to be happening soon... I remember that you were a damn good cook. My bar needs another cook. I can teach you to mix drinks, if you want to learn.”

“I...” He can’t help but think of how he’s physically incapable of interacting with attractive people. He can’t even talk most of time.

Blasè must see his anxiety, and he smiles kindly.

“Don’t worry, you can stay in the back. If this is what you want! It’s your choice.”

Grillby hasn’t had one of those for a very long time.


	8. Stubbornness

1.

Grillby stands outside his house, face turned towards the artificial light that falls from the cavern’s roof. He knows he should go inside; it’s freezing and he’s been standing there for a long time. He had a bad flare earlier, but his core temperature is right where he wants it.

Someone runs into town, the shop rabbit whose name he hasn’t picked up yet, and he notices for the first time that there’s been quite a bit of activity over the past ten minutes. She talks to a few other monsters and he thinks about going over there, but he doesn’t really know these people. Hell, he knows the shop bunny can’t even understand sign language.

She seems to notice him looking, though, and runs over to him.

“I just saw a human in the forest! Snowdrake saw it earlier, and I went out to check, and...”

His fire flares anxiously as she takes in a few deep breaths.

“Has anyone-“

He sighs, remembering too late. She seems embarrassed.

“Sorry, I...guess I’m gonna have to learn how to talk to you, huh?”

He shrugs and looks toward the forest. He signs a ‘thank you, goodbye’ and turns back towards his house to signal that he is leaving.

He walks into the house and stands in the doorway, his mind racing. He can’t let anyone in town fight them, as he knows they will try to do. Even a human child could wipe out the rest of monsterkind, if they were filled with enough hatred and violence.

Fuku is filling out forms for the boarding school she wants to go to next semester. Heats is, thankfully, with a friend in Waterfall today. Grillby taps the table to get her attention.

“I’m going for a walk in the forest.”

She glances up just for a moment.

“Hopefully it cools you down. Something wrong?” She asks, finally realizing how bright he is.

“No. Everything is fine.”

2.

Grillby paces in front of his house.

Fuku is anxious. Their bond is thrumming with an energy he is not used to. Heats isn’t feeling it, so they didn’t fight. He can’t help but wonder if she’s worried about him.

He’s only been pacing outside for a few minutes when the door to his house opens, making him jump.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” Fuku leans against the wall, her flames low and jittery. Grillby’s certain it’s directed at him now.

“Are you alright?”

“I could ask you the same. Did you have another flare?”

“Is that what you’re so worried about?”

She isn’t sure how to respond.

“They’re happening much less. The cold is helping.”

“I’ve noticed,” she smiles at him, “Glad you seem to be feeling better. Physically, at least.”

“Is that what this is about?” He signs, looking toward the rest of the town. He’s about to comment on the unusual amount of activity, but she speaks and he puts that aside.

“Sort of,” She says, knowing their bond already told him what she’s feeling, “I guess...I’m just wondering what’s going to happen when I leave for school next year.”

“I’ll be alright.”

“Do you know what you’re going to do now?”

Grillby laughs.

“And I thought I was your father!”

She smiles, but he knows she’s still waiting for an answer.

“Blasè’s got me working in his bar, but... I know it’s only temporary. It’s a bit far, and it’s too hot there, and...”

“You could open one here.” She says. Grillby can’t help but feel the suggestion is out of place.

“There is a big difference between working in a bar and running one.”

“I know, dad, but I think you could do it. Besides, Uncle Blasè tells me you have some pretty strong opinions on how bars should be run.”

His fire flushes purple as he recalls the argument they had last week.

“It makes no sense to have several species-specific menus! It’s confusing and far too...” He trails off when he sees the way Fuku’s smiling at him.

“Point taken. Still, I don’t know that I’d do much better.”

“Well, think of it this way; are the people of Snowdin more likely to travel all the way to Hotland for a drink or to take a five minute walk to the bar down the street, even if they think the one in Hotland’s better?”

Grillby shakes his head, trying to hide the steaks of proud pink in his flame.

“It’s almost a shame you’re set on becoming a doctor, my dear.”

She’s still anxious, he realizes, and follows her gaze toward the forest.

Almost as if she’d been waiting for a cue, the Lapine who runs the shop in town sprints into view. Fuku turns blue, almost as if to get his attention and alarm bells start going off in the back of his head.

“A-anyway, we’ve been standing out here long enough!” She says, opening their front door and gesturing for him to go inside.

 _So it wasn’t me she was worried about, then?_ He shakes his head and approaches a group of monsters who clustered around the shopkeeper.

Fuku grabs his arm.

“Why don’t I talk to them? I-I know you get nervous around Sans.” She says, almost pleading. He dims, realizing that both of the skeletons are in the group, but brushes her off, convinced she’s done something she doesn’t want him knowing about. And, alright, she did get his back up with that comment about Sans.

It isn’t that he doesn’t like Sans.

Maybe he likes Sans a little too much, even. He’s not sure why. There’s nothing special about him.

Fuku follows behind him, now just filled with anxious energy, and he stands close enough to the shopkeeper to hear what they’re talking about.

“Did the human look like it was headed this way?” Asks Scarlet Feather.

Fuku’s shoulders slump as she realizes the cat’s out of the bag.

“They were out near one of the kid’s puzzles.” She says, gesturing at the taller skeleton whose name Grillby has not been able to work out.

**“COMPLETELY CONFOUNDED, I ASSUME! WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR!”**

Everyone in a five mile radius flinches at the sheer volume of his voice.

Sans’ eyelights shift to his brother for a second. His smile tugs downward like he’s trying to frown.

“Which puzzle were they on?”

**“AND HOW DID THEY GET PAST MY GATE?”**

“Humans are smart creatures. Where-“

“Near the hidden switches.”

Grillby steps back from the group and faces Fuku.

“Why did you try to hide this from me? How did you even know it was out there?”

“Snowdrake told me he saw it this morning. Dad, you can’t fight that thing!”

“I can and I will. I have fought more humans at once-“

“That was twenty years ago! You haven’t fought anything for as long as I’ve been alive!”

“You were born during the war.” Grillby signed with annoyance.

“You are not a soldier anymore!”

“I cannot let these people die because I refused to fight.”

Fuku’s fire dimmed.

“Fine,” Her voice cracked, “Fine. Just go.”

“I will be fine. I am not useless.”

She shakes her head and leaves.

32

A woman runs into Snowdin.

Grillby goes into his house and smells something wonderful being baked with healing magic.

He goes into the kitchen and taps the counter for attention.

“Hey, dad...going for a walk, aren’t you?”

“How-“

“Snowy told me he’d found a human earlier. I know you’re stubborn as any old flame, so I know better than to try and convince you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will involve a fight between a monster and a human and my chronic inability to write action scenes😓


	9. Bad Planning

Grillby synthesizes his old lance, marvelling at how right it feels in his grasp, and taps it against Sans’ training dummy as a warning to any ghosts who might be hiding inside.

Satisfied it’s empty, he starts with physical attacks, mixing it with his half remembered bullet patterns.

He reconsiders his weapon after a bit of practice. He changes the lance into a short sword, then an axe.

After practicing for a bit with each, he switches back to his lance. He’s a bit rusty and he spends a bit too long tightening up his patterns, but he knows he’s miles ahead of anyone else in town. Half of them can’t even form weapons and he’s pretty sure evading attacks wouldn’t occur to them, even if they’re fast enough.

Grillby hears snow crunching and turns toward it, glad humans can’t read fire very well. He hopes they haven’t been watching long, if they had been watching at all.

Grillby can’t help the sound that escapes him when he sees her. He barely has time to think _she’s a child_! Before she attacks him. He barely has time to avoid it and curses himself for his stupidity as he summons a shield to absorb the hits he’s too slow for. He knows how humans are; even their children are filled with hate.

Still, he notes that something about her pattern seems off. She’s using a “weapon”, a book only able to do damage because it’s imbued with her hate, but it looks like she’s supposed to be filling out her attacks with a second weapon. Either that or she’s not usually this combative and something’s pushed her.

A couple more hits dissolve that notion. She’s slow, but Grillby can tell she’s used to reading patterns. Her attacks, though weak, are laced with the intent to kill.

Still, he can’t help but be saddened when he catches her with his lance after a few turns and she screams, eyes filling with tears.

He hates the sight of blood, even though he knows humans don’t do it to beg for MERCY the way monsters do.

He isn’t even using his full attack now, against his better judgment; a part of him wonders if MERCY is even an option available to them.

He tries to sign to her, hoping she’s young enough that the pain would be a warning.

“I don’t want to have to kill you.

She sneers at him. He’s not even sure she understood.

He blocks another flurry of blows and parries the last one, his lance changing unconsciously into a sword during the movement.

She staggers under the hit. There’s so much blood and Grillby draws back, away from what he’d done without thinking.

She stares up at him through her hair, teeth gritted, and Grillby knows that look. The human must have a secret second weapon, and she’s wondering if he’s worth bringing it out for.

He checks her as a free action. Her stats don’t interest him much, she’s unremarkable in both attack an defense.

6 atk, 6 def. STAT brn.

He only feels slightly guilty about her burn seeing the look on her face. He scrolls to the flavour text.

*won’t stop until she has your soul

He grimaces. Her eyes burn when they meet his. She lifts her head and she speaks for the first time.

“You know what? Fuck this.”

And the bullet board fills with rain. Her magic hits harder than her physical attacks and Grillby collapses with the realization that this mage is going to kill him. Already, his core’s too hot, his flame too low, his HP dropping by hundreds in only one attack. By the time he manages to scrabble out of range, his flame is burning like he’s swallowed acid, there’s too much damage done. He can hardly see now, stunned with his pain.

He gasps, trying to get oxygen to reignite his fire.

_If another monster had come with me..._

He gets to his feet. All he can hope now is he can do enough damage to make her an easy kill for the people in town.

She avoids most of his attacks easily, but one errant flame skids across her back, causing another scream.

“Oh, you are so going to die!” He signs again, panicked now that he knows what she can do.

“I didn’t want to fight you! You attacked me!”

Her pattern has been filled out now; to his surprise, she doesn’t automatically go back to rain, choosing instead to have a giant book shake out massive words onto him.

She’s nothing if not inventive, he thinks, dodging the word MISERY.

He summons dozens of tiny lances so he can preserve his heat and still have a full pattern. He hears her curse, the vibrant violet of her soul visible for a second as she’s hurt by her burn.

He’s surprised for a second-she must have been hit by something he didn’t see if she was that close to death- and then remembers the burn. She must be out of healing items, seeing as she’s just trying to kill him now.

Now that he’s prepared for it, the rain isn’t as bad as it was the first time, but it’s still agonizing and hard to avoid. Her turns are longer now that she’s shown her hand and for a second he’s confused. He runs back through the soul colours and grimaces when he remembers hers. _Perseverance._

Not that she’ll need to keep lengthening her turns much longer. He’s already badly injured, and in his typical stubbornness, hadn’t bothered to bring healing items. Not that those could be so easily found in Snowdin, but he could have waited until Fuku was done baking.

The human is good at evasion, and he gets the feeling this is going to be his last turn. He shuts his fear and his sadness away somewhere deep in his mind.

He will not give this human the satisfaction of begging, and he knows he can still kill them after he dies.

He spends his turn preparing his core for what he needs it to do; _it’s just damaged enough to do the trick_ , he thinks.

He welcomes the next deluge, but as he falls to his knees at 1hp, he’s almost certain he hears it stop. His vision goes black, and for a single, delirious second, he thinks he hears Boss Monster music.

-

Frisk leaps over Asnoch’s scythe, accepting that at least one of the fireballs is going to hit them. They do much less damage, though, and Frisk can evade better with a burn than a fracture.

They dash back, away from the hulking, horned figure, and try again.

“I’m here to help you!”

“I’ve seen what a mage’s help gets me!”He bellows, incensed at the very idea that a mage should try to help him, “It gets my family and friends trapped underground for decades! It gets my kind slaughtered in droves!”

Asnoch bears down on them again, his music doubling in speed as his scythe opens a fissure in the cave floor. From the fissure, he summons balls of fire that chase Frisk in a loop before smashing back into Asnoch. He seems too furious to notice the dip in HP, which Frisk is thankful for.

“AUGH! Humanity may have failed to kill you, but I will not make the same mistake!”

“I wasn’t even alive then!”

“And you won’t be soon!” He says, his scythe making full contact with their stomach, flinging then against the cave wall.

8 damage. _Ouch._ The fireballs cross overhead, barely missing them, but also, crucially, missing him.

They shovel a cookie into their mouth, but only heal for 5 health.

Frisk jumps over his scythe again and runs a loop around him finally getting the maximum of 6 to hit him.

His health drops low enough, and an exclamation mark appears next to his head.

“The oldest trick in the book! Hitting me with my own attacks? Shameful.” He shakes his head and snaps his fingers, “Well, no more homing attacks for you.”

 _Damn it!_ They’ve got a stick. One stick. Sure, it’s a heavy walking stick, but that’s all it is.

Still, they have to make do, and so they do, springing at him and smacking him in the face with it.

Asnoch seems stunned by the hit and Frisk flushes, realizing the wood is surrounded by a nimbus of red light. Intention.

Asnoch straightens from his hunched, miserable position, raising his head far enough that Frisk can make out his familiar, bearded features.

“...mage...what is your purpose here?”

Frisk wipes the hair from their eyes.

“I’m just here to help.”

-

Grillby wakes up on his bed, a chair pulled up next to him. Fuku sits next to him, a hand on his own. He speaks softly.

“I shouldn’t have left.”

Someone else clears their throat and Grillby‘s mouth snaps shut when he realizes Sans is in the room.

“Sorry, uh...should I go?”

“Do you understand sign language?”

“Yeah. Is he gonna keep up his, uh, well I guess it’s not an act, but-“

“I don’t like to talk to people I don’t know...”

“Gotcha.”

“What are you doing here?” He signed shakily. Usually he couldn’t even sign around Sans, but Sans had just seen him nearly get murdered by a child. He couldn’t do anything more humiliating.

“Well, you ran off and fought a human and I had a vision of said human, um...being a mage. I barely got there in time.”

“I didn’t know you could see the future.”

“Barely.” Sans says with an embarrassed chuckle.

He did a quick check and was surprised he’d gotten the EXP for the kill.

“I killed her...?”

“Yeah she died from the burn. You were really hurt when I got there, though. The snow would’ve killed you.”

“...who came with you? I didn’t recognize their music.” Sans’ left eyesocket did something odd, and it took a moment for Grillby to realize it was like he’d raised his eyebrows.

“Just me, s-“ Sans gritted his teeth like he’d almost said something inappropriate, “Just me.”

Fuku squeezed his hand, and smiled, almost with pride.

“Undyne-uh, that’s the captain of the royal guard-is coming here to pick up the soul and thank you personally.”

“Where is it?”

“Just downstairs.”

“Well, uh, I just wanted to say...congrats and all that, but...next time a human comes around, maybe get some people to help? I don’t think anyone would want to see you get hurt. You have two kids, s...you have to be careful.”

Sans patted his shoulder and left, ignoring Fuku’s glare.

Grillby was still for a while.

“Dad, don’t let him get to you.”

He stares at his ceiling, avoiding her face because he knows what he wants to do will make her angry. He isn’t sure if he wants to be convinced not to go.

“I want to see your mother.”

Fuku pulls her hand away.

“Absolutely fucking not, are you kidding me?”

“I want to see her.”

“Why? What are you hoping to achieve?”

“I miss her. I feel so lost, Fuku...”

“All she’s going to do is make you feel bad!”

“But I...I killed a human.”

“She doesn’t love you, dad! She isn’t going to care; and hell, that’s if she even shows up!”

He knows this, but it hurts to hear it said so bluntly.

“...I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. But she treated you badly and she doesn’t deserve you crawling back to her and begging for her approval.”

“Who else would have me?”

“Your soulmate!”

“That doesn’t mean he’ll like me.“

“Dad, you can’t keep doing this. It’s not healthy for you. Doctor-“

“I don’t care what Giselle is going to say.”

“...how am I going to explain it to Heats when you come back a mess?”

“I won’t.”

“You always do and I’m tired of trying to hide it from him.”

“I know she doesn’t care about me.”

“Then why-“

“This will be the last time.”

Her eyes narrow.

“...you promise?”

“I will make an oath if I must.” He says, leaning back against his pillows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit this is long hahaha  
> Anyways, I hope this isn’t garbage...  
> I've realized all the italics aren't coming through when i paste into this window so now i gotta go through and do it again


	10. Anniversary

Alphys is pretty sure this feral is exactly what she needs. It looks like a little rodent, its breathing harsh and its skin cracked from lack of moisture.

It’s not dead yet, but it’s certainly past the help of current veterinary medicine.

_Unless..._

“I can’t do anything worse to you.” She says, picking the tiny thing up. She’ll need to identify it, but she figures she can give it the treatment first; no point identifying something that’s already dead. At least, not yet. She has to be sure it can even do what she thinks it can before she goes looking for the recently deceased to test it on.

Once it’s in her lab, she prepares a syringe full of the red fluid she’s taken to calling DETERMINATION, after Sans’ description of it.

“Liquified will-to-live” is how he put it, “And for once I’m not talking about scotch.”

She likes DETERMINATION better. She injects it into her new patient, then opens a cage she has off to one side.

She places it in the straw, next to her other three patients.

-

The fourth, a hamster, is still breathing, as are the others. Alphys has an appointment to keep, so she’s put a motion detector in the cage while she waits for Sans.

She hasn’t taken patients for years, but any other doctor would have too many questions.

She’s known Sans for far too long to even try. Besides, he’s medically fascinating. Any doctor would kill for the privilege.

He’s carrying something when he comes in and her eyes widen, worried he needs so much food now he has to carry something around with him.

He sees her concern and laughs.

“Relax, Alph. Just thought I’d get something for our two month anniversary.”

He opens the box and she can’t help but laugh at the cake inside. It reads “Sorry, I’m not dead yet! Check back next month!”

“Oh man, has it been two months already?” She asks, glad to see him in such good spirits. Two months after the day Sans was supposed to die.

“Yeah. Sorry I’ve messed up your perfect estimations so much.”

She shakes her head.

“I’ve never been happier to be proven wrong,” she says, taking the offered paper plate, “And not just because you brought me cake.” Sans pauses as he goes to cut it.

“Now, I didn’t think about this...since there’s only two of us...”

“We could just cut it in half.”

“Hell yeah, we’re adults, we can choose to have half a cake for lunch if we want!”

She takes a bite, watching Sans sit across the table. With a self-conscious glance at her, he cracks his jaw open with a tiny spark of magic.

“Still uncomfortable eating around people, huh? You know I don’t mind.”

“I know, I know,” he says through a mouthful of cake.

She knows the appointment has to happen, and soon, but for now she lets herself tease her best friend, and relax.

-

_Now for the unpleasant part_ , she thinks, watching Sans put his plate in the trash. She’s on Sans’ blind side, so he can’t see that she’s watching him for any sign of stiffness, of pain.

She’s gratified that he seems more or less fine. He uses his confusing kind of blue magic casually, not pausing to check his reserves before he catches a mug he accidentally knocks off her worktable.

“It looks like you’ve been taking care of yourself.”

“Trying to, at least.”

“How’s your new bond been?”

Sans shrugs.

“Still swollen. Hasn’t changed.”

“Any more information about him?”

“...yeah.”

“Figure out who it is?”

“No...uh, but there’s something else I should mention.”

“Okay...?”

“I think I’m enthralled to someone in town.”

“What make you think that? That’s a huge accusation.”

“I don’t think its on purpose. It’s just that... I haven’t even talked to him but I can’t stop thinking about him. He got hurt recently and I felt like I was going to die when I found him. And when I tried to pick him up it felt like I got hit by a fucking truck.”

Alphys bit back a laugh.

“It’s not funny, Alph, I’m really stressed about this!”

“Sans, I think that’s your soulmate, but let’s go down to my lab, okay? I need to check your soul.”

_And a thrall would explain such a swollen bond..._

Sans’ eyelights go out for a few seconds.

“Is your soul...”

“As ugly and damaged as it always has been.”

She sighs, leading him to the elevator. The ride down is quiet and once Sans is sitting, he summons his soul without any complaints.

She takes a pair of forceps and pulls one tiny thread of the bond up,careful not to damage the sensitive organ or pull the bond loose.

It did look like there were two bonds growing into one another there. One was the bright red of a soulmate and the other was a much darker shade, pulsing. Still...

The actual bond is still way too thick, but the thrall has added at least an inch.

She grimaces at the stitched, scarred surface as she pulls back.

“Okay, yeah. It does look like you’ve got a thrall, but...”

“But...?”

“I mean, you bond’s still swollen, even under all that. I’m probably going to have to do surgery, if you even want it gone.”

Sans’ jaw made a cracking noise as he considered it.

“Didn’t you say it was stressing you out?” She asks gently. Thralls are addictive, she knows that much, and Sans has had a long history with addiction.

“I don’t know. I mean, is the thrall attached to my soulmate?”

“Yes, it definitely seems that way.”

“Then I’ll keep it.”

“And you haven’t...done anything about it?”

“You want me to ask him about my thrall?” Sans raised an eyeridge.

“I know better than to ask you that. No, I meant, have you acted on anything you’ve wanted to do because of the thrall?”

“No! Gods no. Honestly, he’s kinda been avoiding me, so it’s been pretty easy to stay calm.”

Sans’ hands ball into fists against his thighs.

“You know you have to tell him, right?”

“I don’t think that’d be good for him right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hate this chapter but have it anyway


	11. Spending Quality Time With Family

Grillby hangs his coat up. He takes off his boots, sets his umbrella down to dry. Fuku watches apprehensively a few steps away.

He looks worn down and sad, but not like he just got done breaking down. An improvement, then.

She pulls him off to one side, into the kitchen with a glance at Heats.

“So...how did it go?” He holds up a finger and takes a moment longer to strip his gloves off. He places them distractedly on the counter. For all his silence, he seems to be in a relatively good mood.

“It went as well as one could expect, I suppose.”

He shrugs as he glances past her, into the living room. He smiles as he sees Heats, busy drawing something. He is laying on his stomach, completely focused on the paper.

“What did you talk about?”

“I asked her about Heats.”

Fuku’s eyes widen. That’d never happened before.

“What’d she say?”

“She accused me of having an affair, then implied I was a prostitute,” He even laughs a little, “What a difference from when I came in! She was so happy to see her lovely “wife”.” He sighs.

“Yikes. Still not getting that whole...” she decides not to bring that up, “Um, but she said Heats isn’t hers?”

“Yes. Sun above only knows where I found someone to have an affair with, she never let me leave the house.”

“And when would you have had the time for all that prostitution?”

He snorts, covering his mouth to stifle the noise.

“Goodness, she certainly is something!” His smile fades after a moment. “You know she was trying to get me help her appeal the court again today?”

“In between insults, or...?”

“Somewhat attached...She never hurt you, did she?” His eyes are distant for a second and Fuku can’t help the protective flare of her flame.

“No. She didn’t. Do you think you would have let her?”

“Honestly...I can’t remember.”

She puts a comforting hand on his arm, but he shakes his head.

“I’m alright, my dear. I figured she was lying.” Fuku’s fire flickers white with fury.

“Did she say she hurt me?”

“She implied it, certainly, but she would not say so much while she is attempting to get out of prison. I suppose she just knew it would upset me.”

She puts an arm around him and rests her head against his shoulder.

“I was okay. I didn’t even know what she was doing to you, until...”

They lapse into silence for a moment, but Heats doesn’t let them stay quiet for too long.

He wanders into the kitchen, holding the paper he’d been drawing on, and hands it to his father.

-

Grillby stares at the drawing later that night, his eyes scanning it as if expecting it to reveal the secrets of the universe.

Four people. Heats, Fuku, and himself of course.

Something drawn all in black with a white face stands next to him, smiling in an unsettling way. It has one eye half-closed.

Just looking at it gives him a headache.

It doesn’t look familiar at all, that creature. He can’t put a finger on what it could even be; he doesn’t know much about certain species, especially shadowy, dark creatures. He’s never even seen one.

He had, of course, asked Heats.

“Who’s this?” He’d asked, tapping the creature.

“He’s my dad, I think. I saw him in a dream.” He said, shrugging.

_And that’s one more time than I have seen him. Does Heats know something I don’t?_

He can’t help but wonder if this is his way of dealing with his lack of a second parent. Grillby had done everything he could for his children, but certainly Heats had noticed something was missing. He was observant as any child (though he seemed more mature than his five years), but he’d never asked about a second parent.

Grillby feels like he is missing something big. That his son, who had simply appeared five years ago, was part of something much bigger.

-

Frisk watches Asnoch, marvelling at the similarities to his son. Looking at his his worn, tired expression, seeing the wariness in his eyes, Frisk could believe he was Asgore.

He stares out the cave entrance and turns back to them.

“Mage, are more of your kind coming?”

They shake their head.

“Still, you will need to return to your home soon, will you not?”

“I live alone.” They sign, pausing as they write “Intent on first attack” as a shortcut for Asnoch’s fight.

“...you have no family?”

They shake their head, thinking of their friends.

_I will, but they don’t know me yet._

They miss tasting Papyrus’ recipe of the week, Undyne’s lessons on magic they already know how to do. The look on Alphys’ face when she finds out Mew Mew Kissy Cutie has three more seasons. Sleeping in between Sans and Grillby as they watch some old sci-fi movie. All of them piling into a car to go see Mettaton’s latest performance.

A tiny part of their mind wanders to their parents, but they shut it down quickly.

Asnoch sees this in their face and sits heavily beside the fire pit he’s scratched into the rock. He lights it with a careless gesture, filling the cave with a crackling noise that makes them nostalgic.

“Are you looking for your family?”

“I already know where they are.”

“You’re a runaway, then?”

“Yes.”

“And what do you want with an old monster like me?”

Frisk considers the dialogue tree. They could go through the lengthy discussion that unlocks Ruth’s next heart event, or they could fast track it with their self-awareness perk. Because the dialogue tree starts with the quest they got from Nathan, but Frisk knows that isn’t why they came to this cave.

They decide to go straight to the questioning. They already have a transcript of the whole thing written down; they resolve to look over it later to see if any of the less obviously useful lines mention something that could help Sans in the future.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hiding from humans. Though it doesn’t seem to have worked.”

“No, I mean, how did you avoid being trapped underground?”

“... I had already gone into exile by then. I failed my people during the war. My son...took my place as king. I’ve been hiding ever since, leaving everything behind once humans start sniffing around. I suppose I’ll have to leave here soon.”

“Why?”

“You’ve found this place. That means others will too. Humans who will not be as merciful as you.”

He shakes his head, confused by the concept.

“I have never known a mage to spare a monster before. You are quite unique.”

“How many mages have you fought? How did you know I’m a mage?”

He looks uncomfortable at the question.

“I have never fought a mage myself, but I have heard stories. And I know because I can smell it on you. Few monsters can...perhaps I’m the only one left.”

“...why do you hate mages so much?”

“It’s their fault the war started. At least, that’s how it seems to me. I don’t imagine humans just decided they were going to slaughter us out of nowhere. That we were suddenly a fearsome race.”

Frisk hears hope in his voice and bites their lip. They so badly want to tell him that everything will be okay.

“Do you think humans could be okay with monsters again now that mages are gone?”

He sighs, his eyes faraway.

“I used to have human friends. After my dear Goram died-a decade before the war, mind you- I might have even married a human woman. But when war came, she joined their cause. She was changed somehow, even before the fighting started. She was cold towards me. She said she’d kill me if she ever saw me again.”

“Did she die?”

“No. Not a single human died. And even if one had, it would not have been my dear Ruth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally getting somewhere  
> Hey, if you guys catch any weird grammar or misplaced periods, please point them out to me! I write these entirely in the "notes" of my ipod so sometimes periods end up in places I don't want them, or a word is changed into a completely different word (even tho it's spelled perfectly thank you apple, I definitely wanted so to become do)


	12. Patience Is A Virtue

Alphys is in bed, reading A Thesis on Soul Colourization, when it happens.

One of Alphys’ patients stirs, rising from her bed of straw and sniffing around the cage. Her limbs are stiff and she’s limping, but she’s warm. She isn’t sure where she is, but the smell of the place tells her she’s not in Snowdin any more. She starts chewing on the bars of the cage.

Alphys stirs at the ping of the motion trackers, realizing she’s been rereading the same line over and over again.

She pulls her phone up and checks the cameras, setting her book aside. Her eyes widen. She bolts upright, sending a few other scientific journals flying off the bed, and scrambles to her elevator.

It’s an agonizing two minute ride down, punctuated by the repetitive pinging of the tracker.

She scrambles to the cage and stands stock still as a second set of teeth join her first patient’s.

The two rats look healthy, and she lets out a little cheer.

She disables the motion trackers and digs through the piles of papers and wrappers on her desk for the microchips she prepared two weeks ago.

She unearths them and chips one, then the other, hardly able to keep her claws from shaking.

She makes sure they’ve eaten, gotten water, and moves them into separate carriers.

She lets one loose in Hotland and sends the other one to Snowdin in the Riverperson’s capable, skinless hands.

-

Frisk watches the third human climb the mountain. Two should already have fallen, only one of which they could have seen. They’re keeping their distance; they recognize that tutu and know enough about this one to steer clear of her.

She passes through the ruined village, her eyes scrutinizing every shadow, and for a second Frisk wonders if she’ll see them this time.

But no, her eyes gloss over the ruined doorway Frisk is standing in and they hold back a sigh of relief.

Her footsteps are planned, measured, and predatory. Her shoes make a perfect, silent point. They can’t help but wonder if they are the prey. They shiver as she makes her way out of the village.

-

She considers the entrance to the cave. It’s a long, long way down, but her choice is already made. Humans have become dull. Tiring to kill. The soft blue of her soul pulses with excitement as she leaps down, her right foot extended down in a spear.

The earth around her rises on impact and she grins at the sheer power she contains.

She leaves the ruins in high spirits.

A woman, barely dressed, runs around the ruins.

She stops at the open door, at the disturbed dust leading into the snow outside. At the discarded toy knife, and the scratches she is certain a piece of plastic did not cause, no matter how hateful the creature was. She only wants to leave for a second before she closes the door. She tries to convince herself she's not hesitating out of fear.

A part of her isn't certain who she is more afraid for; the human or the monsters outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I’ll need to write out a less interesting character to do this, but I’ve found a way to keep this villain I wrote that I love and most of this story intact. I’m putting this chapter back up and I’ll just change one gd word in an old chapter and write an extra bit at the end of this. Now it’s Bravery who died off screen.


	13. Other

*What do I know about my soulmate so far?

Short?

Charisma-centric build

A doctor? Unemployed? Has a doctorate and is a physicist (same thing? Maybe????? Not sure)

Has teeth but not an organic (unless there’s an organic that lives millions of years?)

A man

No clue what’s going on with his magic

Has been to Snowdin at least once (I like to think he was looking for me)

Is sick/injured, takes painkillers

Has a sibling, really loves them

Has a LOT of kids but not around any of them-why?

Doesn’t like violence? Seems nice enough.

Calls me Sunshine : )

A doctor’ been feeling around our bond and I didn’t like it. Used to it now.

Not a lot to go on.

Fuku has been very protective of me since bond formed. I can tell she is worried, especially when I told her I was looking for him. I think she thinks I am aiming to marry him immediately and let him take over my life, but I won’t. The time away from her has helped some, and though I would never admit it to Fuku, I feel my brief incarceration helped me somewhat. I was able to clear my head without the constant reassurance I did nothing wrong.

The truth is I should not have let things get that bad to begin with. I allowed her to treat me that way from the very beginning. I could have reached out to my family at any time.

I let her push me past my limits and while my father argues she shouldn’t have even tried, I was just as much to blame as her. More, even; she never tried to kill me, as far as I remember.

Though sometimes it felt that way. I am not delusional: I know what she did to me was awful.

I will hope I can convince Fuku I will be safe with him.

-

A Thesis On Soul Colorization

On Virtues and Vices

As previously noted, though the vast majority of modern monsters have white souls, there still exist monsters whose souls have colour.

HOPE is a virtue, as I have said, though it is not the only virtue. More importantly, a virtue is not the only thing that might colour a soul. There also exist vices, which are the opposite of their colour-paired virtue. Telling the difference between a virtue and a vice can be difficult, a problem compounded by the fact that those paired act very similar to one another.

They will be listed below in no particular order.

The most widespread of the vices is a pair to HOPE, though it can be considered entirely separate as the vice-MISERY-is black instead of an off white and does not mimic HOPE in any way. Still, I list them here as a pair because it is undeniable that they are caused by a buildup of opposing magic.

An orange soul denotes BRAVERY or ARROGANCE.

An azure soul may denote INTEGRITY or DECIET.

Aqua denotes PATIENCE or IDLENESS.

Yellow denotes JUSTICE or VENGEANCE.

Purple denotes PERSEVERANCE or INFLEXIBILITY.

Green denotes KINDNESS or MANIPULATION.

There may be other virtue/vice pairs not covered here, as much of our research on many aspects of monster life was lost in the migration.

An important thing to note is that a virtuous soul does not automatically mean the owner of that soul is a good, kind person. The opposite is also true of vices. For instance, the way JUSTICE manifests itself depends on what the SOUL’s owner perceives as just and fair.

-

The snow under her feet crunches quietly as she feels around for her ribbon. After a moment, she gives up, furious that she is only going ahead with one piece of armour. Not that she really needs it, but it looked cute. She must have dropped it in the ruins when she was killing those weird vegetables.

More importantly, she’s got the sense that something is following her. She feels herself being watched and, judging by the fact she hasn’t caught a glimpse of this thing, it’s waiting for something. The third dog she attacked, she’d been scared away from finishing it by that thing appearing behind her and dragging her off.

She hears something hop toward her and perks up. So far, she’s killed two dog people, but from the way this thing moves she knows it isn’t another dog. It’s moving far too clumsily to be whatever’s hunting her, as well.

She walks towards the sound, brushing dust from her tutu. If she’d known monsters were so messy, she might’ve stuck to humans. Then again, it was pretty annoying to wash blood out of her clothes every time.

The monster hops into view a few feet away and sits, tucking its feet under its body.

A bird with black and white feathers, almost as tall as her sitting down. Not hard, as she isn’t very tall, but impressive for a bird. It has a short yellow beak and a lax, peaceful expression.

She schools her expression for her approach and walks straight for the monster. She stops a step away from the bird and waits, willing herself to look vulnerable and scared.

It takes the bird a while to crack an eye open, but when it does, she’s gratified to see the thing jump, spreading its wings like it’s going to take flight.

Instead, it stands and hops a few steps away.

“You’re a human!” She says, and Rose does her best not to roll her eyes. She reminds herself what she’s doing here and keeps any rude comments she may have to herself.

“I-I got lost.” Rose says, keeping her voice soft.

“I’d say so! What are you doing here?”

“I came to look for my brother.” She lies. The monster must have awfully bad insight, because she swallows it.

“Oh. You poor dear...your brother isn’t here anymore.”

Rose makes herself tear up. It isn’t hard with the wind making her eyes water.

“I’m so sorry, kid.” She’s quiet for a second and Rose can’t suppress a shiver as she waits for her to make a decision. To her relief, the bird notices.

“Here, why don’t you come to town with me and we can talk somewhere warmer?”

She nods, and the bird turns away from her. Rose checks her, subtly, an grins at the knowledge that her guard is down. The bird turns, surprised, and only has a second before Rose’s fingernails grow into claws and her throat is torn out.

Rose goes to cut her open and destroy her soul, but that thing distracts her again, something wrapping around her arm and jerking her back for a millisecond.

When she looks back at the ground, the body is gone.


	14. Warriors Guilt

Something interesting happened recently. Who would have thought it in this town?

Seven dogfolk moved in last week, at the request of Undyne. Five cynocephaly of various races and a pair of tanuki. Poor Papyrus as not had a peaceful moment since those two tricksters moved in. They respect me too much to take a swing at me, but I have heard several complaints from others.

They came to my door first, as I am the only veteran in this town (so far as I know). It was an uncomfortable experience; I believe they were expecting me to be someone else. At least one of them obviously recognized me. Honestly, as my attempted murder charge has been the only big news story since we migrated down here, I have been expecting the rest of them to remember me as well.

Perhaps the rest of them did and were simply too polite to mention it. If that is true, I suppose this is the best case scenario, a kindness I have not earned.

They still come by. They ask if I want to spar. I do not. They ask what I think we should do to protect the town. I tell them I was not a strategist, I was more of a bomb. They ask me how I killed the human and it's embarrassing to admit it was my status effect that did the deed.

I must be such a disappointment.

...

(the rest of the page is burned)

-

Grillby opens his door to the dogs again, still tired from yesterday's...no, the day before's flare and the emergency core replacement he had gone through. His own damn fault, really, he had been putting his replacement off for far too long and should have known better.

He’s automatically on edge when he sees Sans is there too. Since coming home yesterday to find that Sans had also spent the day bedridden, he had begun to suspect Sans had a thrall and that missing the subject of his obsession, he had begun to go through withdrawl.

He can’t help but assume the poor man had been caught stalking him. He’s staring, unsurprisingly.

He bows and signs, hoping Sans hasn’t been treated too poorly for it.

“Would you like to come in? I’ve just put on some fuel, but I can-“

“No time for that! There’s a-“

He sighs, then turns red when he realizes he cut Doggo off.

“My apologies. A human, you were saying?”

“She’s killed...or tried to kill...five people so far. She, um...god-“ He glances at Dogaressa, not sure how to continue.

“She tried to kill my mother, and Dogamy’s father. Both ended up falling. She left their bodies out there. Sans brought them back to the inn.” Her voice is cold and determined. She’s handling it much better than Dogamy, who hasn’t spoken since they arrived and doesn’t look like he plans to any time soon.

Poor thing.

“Anyways, we’re all splitting into groups and doing patrols around the forest and the blizzard. This human’s a coward, she won’t try anything in town. Are you going to join us or not?”

“It’s okay if you can’t,” Doggo cuts in almost defensively, “We know you had surgery yesterday, and it’s fine if you’re still recovering.”

“No, I am fine. I can fight.”

“Good. We’ll be splitting up into three groups. Toby, Doggo and the Greater dig will patrol the area from the Ruins door to the town. Sans and Grillby will be patrolling through the blizzard and into waterfall,” She stares at him like a challenge and he’s somewhat surprised to see Sans is the only one who looks like he might object. Grillby nods, willing himself to stay polite. Were he younger, he might have decided to take her up on it after the human’s death. She seems almost pleased by his silence. He’s good at that, and he tries to keep himself from bowing like he feels he needs to.

“Dogamy and I will wait for either of your groups to chase her into town, and in the rare case she realizes she is being chased.” He looks away from her, uncomfortable because he has seen that look on the faces of so many monsters during the war.

Grillby realizes that Sans is still staring at him, and his anxiety flares.

It doesn’t mean that it’s a thrall, I’m just magnetic. And I can’t stop staring at him either; maybe he’s magnetic too, after all, he does have a charisma build.

Was he even listening? His permanent smile is as enigmatic as ever. One of the dogi clearly has the same question.

“Hey, Sans, are you even paying attention?”

"Yeah,” He says, finally looking away from Grillby, “Not that I think anyone will come out during the fight, but we should warn people to stay inside, just in case.”

“We’ll do that. You should get moving.” Grillby’s pretty sure Dogaressa probably just wants them gone, so he runs inside and hugs his daughter, takes a couple of healing items, and joins Sans. He holds his flame still to stop his hands shaking.

-

Frisk politely knocks at Ruth’s door, hoping she’s here. Usually it rains the day after their conversation with Asnoch, keeping her inside for the heart event.

Today, it’s a beautiful sunny day, but the door opens for them to go through. They’re glad; their arm’s hurting from the weight of the tray they’re carrying.

“Oh, hello dear...” She has her sword down, the sword that has hung above her couch since the end of the war.

Seven inches of steel that must have been magnificent in its prime, before the war filled it with zealous hatred. The nicks take nothing from the dragon-neck handle, the flames that race up the length of the thing. In fact, they think the nick in the ruby eye gives it more character.

It’s half in a huge storage bin with the lid off, covered in dust.

“What brings you here, my dear?”

They uncover the cookies they brought, smiling at her.

They aren’t sure where they got the cookies. They’re good though.

They sit. Ruth makes tea. They eat.

Finally, they ask about the sword.

“Oh...well. My father was a blacksmith. He made this for me during the war.”

She looks over it, wistful.

“Frisk, can I ask you a question?”

They nod.

“Do you know how the war started?”

Frisk shakes their head and Ruth’s mouth twists into an ugly grimace. Her eyes are cold.

“Neither do I, Frisk. I killed hundreds of monsters. I helped plan how we would drive them down into the earth. But I don’t know why.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha been a while, eh? Well, I got myself into a short story thing and drew 5 pieces of valentines art, started working on them 5 days before. Need to write about 1900 words before the end of the month :’)


	15. The Beginning Of...Something

Frisk sees the cover story of a newspaper as they dig around in a garbage can out back of a restaurant and they pause in their work.

_A controversial exhibit on the monster-human war opens today at the Ebbott Memorial Museum. It features several weapons and peices of armour donated by veterans and two interactive memorials to murdered and missing mages and monsters from the years preceding the war, which some have called “an attack on veterans” and “an attempt to politicize history”.”_

Frisk has never gone before, fearing it would make them too obvious, but they know it might be their best lead in years on a quest they never got to finish, an open tab they could never close.

Find out who your mother was.

-

Alphys is pretty sure Undyne is the most attractive monster in the underground. She’d opened the door wearing only a stained lab coat her fourth patient had chewed a hole in, expecting Asgore or some other unimportant royal guard member.

But no. There was Undyne, captain of the Royal Guard, a woman Alphys had only been able to admire from a distance up til now. She wasn’t in her armour, which was sensible given the heat, and Alphys quietly thanked whatever capricious god governed hot fish ladies showing up on your doorstep.

"Hey, doc. Got the new human soul for ya." She raises an eyebrow when she looks past Alphys. Alphys curses whatever capricious god governs hot fish ladies realizing you’re a nerd who watches anime.

"What are you watching?” She’s squinting like she’s not sure what she’s looking at, and Alphys isn’t sure why. It’s pretty obvious what she’s watching. She tries to make a joke out of it.

“I-it’s an animated documentary on humanity.”

And Undyne buys it.

“That’s so cool! Maybe I should find some of that! It might help me figure out how to fight them better.”

Alphys gapes at her, but in the back of her mind she realizes that of course, Undyne must’ve been too young during the war to know about anime.

“U-um, well,” She says, realizing she has a great opportunity here, “D-do you want to watch some with me?”

-

Sans uses blue magic to send the snow up before it gets to them, keeping it suspended as they walk under it and sending it back to the ground after they’ve passed. He’s never seen blue magic be used that way, but sees no reason it can’t be.

Grillby gets the idea Sans spends a lot of time in this storm, though he’s not sure why anyone would want to. Sans also is conspicuously unarmed and wearing his regular clothing, which isn’t typical for a non-civilian.

_Wait...was Sans even in the war? What is he even doing here?_

They walk in step, Grillby on Sans’ blind left side and Sans prowling like some sort of feral, his right eye glowing gold.

Grillby starts feeling strange as he walks. He suddenly understands what organics mean when they say they feel like their heads are full of cotton. He has been working very hard to turn the first floor of his home into a functional bar, and it's been taking a lot of his time and energy. Has he worked himself sick already?

He feels pain through his soulmate bond and takes a second to make sure he's okay.

**I really should've taken my painkillers before I left my house...**

Grillby stops in his tracks. He's read books on soulmates and he supposes he should have known this might happen, but...it’s a very different feeling reading about thought-sharing than experiencing it.

Sans half-turns turns to face him,

“What is it? D’you hear something?”

 **Wait...can you hear me, Sunshine?** His soulmate thinks.

 **Yes,** he thinks.

“No.” He says. Sans gives him a strange look and shrugs.

“Okay. Keep me updated. And catch back up to me, I need you on my left side.”

 **Well...this is inconvenient.** His soulmate thinks awkwardly.

“Sorry!” He hurries back into step with Sans.

**Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to distract you.**

_I’m already getting in his way and we haven’t even met..._

**Hey, don’t think like that! You’re not in my way. I’m glad I get to talk to you, I’m just...in the middle of something.**

Grillby flushes at the gentle rebuke. He and his soulmate walk in amiable silence-or at least not directly talking- for a while before Grillby gets the sense his soulmate is keeping something hidden. His thoughts are too quiet.

Grillby’s eyes catch something to the left, a flash of movement.

He taps Sans’ arm, forgetting the thrall for a second and remembering when Sans pulls away from his hand. For all his obsession, he seems in control of himself, like he knows what is and is not healthy for him.

“My apologies.” He points to where he saw the movement and Sans nods, turning his head to look. His left eyelight doesn’t move like the right one, staying fixed on a random point in the distance.

He senses his soulmate’s sudden irritation and feels the cold wind on his...skin? He doesn’t have skin, he’s certain, and neither does his soulmate so what is he feeling it on?

**You really shouldn’t be out here. Go home.**

**You’re in Snowdin right now? You need to go someplace safe, there’s a human out here!**

**Don’t worry about me, Sunshine. Just go home.**

Sans’ eyesockets narrow at the surrounding woods.

“Don’t think she’s noticed us. Are you...planning on sticking around?”

“Of course!” He says, snapping out of his conversation with his soulmate.

Sans sighs.

“Alright, just...be careful when we engage her. In case she decides to fight instead of run.”

“I will. I’m fine, Sans, core replacements are not that big of a deal.”

“They are when your core explodes. I shouldn’t have let you come out here in this state...”

He can’t even really argue; after all Sans is a doctor and he must know how intense an emergency replacement can be.

And he pauses.

_How the hell do I know that?_

_Oh._

Sans’ right eyeridge raises, and then his left.

Snow crunches nearby.

“Is it your core? Are you okay, S-“ And he cuts himself off. His thoughts are all hidden now, but Grillby knows already.

“Sunshine. That’s what you call me. How long have you known?” _How did I miss this?_

_The brother he loves too much...the height, the weird magic I've never seen before, the charisma perks..._

Sans looks away, his smile tugging into a grimace.

“I didn’t want to distract you while we did this.”

“And before that?”

He sighs.

"I, uh...thought it would've been a bad time for you, okay? Especially because-"

Grillby hears the snow crunch again and holds a finger up.

Sans nods.

“Right, we can argue later.”

Grillby exhales smoke.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

**We’re not even dating yet and we’re acting like an old married couple.**

Grillby chuckles, catches himself. The human steps closer. Sans communicates with vague gestures and some thought that he wants to use the cover of the blizzard to get behind her. He doesn’t think she can see them yet, and it’ll be easier to chase her forward that way.

Sans walks almost silently through the snow and Grillby can’t help but feel he’s too loud even with his armour removed and despawned. Once they’re standing between her and the rest of the underground, Sans taps his thigh and suddenly his footsteps are making noise.

She stops walking like his footsteps are the only ones carrying through the storm.

He recreates his armour and his heavenly blade, but lets Sans walk ahead.

She’s visible now, her tiny figure braced against the wind.

The snow around them clears, a sudden gust of wind blowing it toward her.

_Was that Sans?_

Her eyes narrow at him.

“It’s you who’s been following me, isn’t it?”

Sans just shrugs, staring at her. Grillby looks between the two of them, completely lost.

“Well then. No point in hiding it.”

“Suppose not.”

Her limbs lengthen and Grillby braces for her first attack.

But it’s interrupted. Something grabs her, lifting her off her feet and into the air.

Music starts up. Familiar, fast music Grillby was pretty sure he’d dreamed.

And then he's unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note; I subscribe to the theory that Megalovania is ch*ras boss theme, whereas Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans is Sans’. The song heard is STMPWYFS  
> Also how did nobody ask when Grillby learned Sans had a charisma build


	16. Clues

Frisk climbs to the top of Mt. Ebbott and stares down the opening, wishing that this time, the option will show up.

No dice, but they stand there squinting, trying to see all the way down to the bed of golden flowers at the bottom of the tunnel.

_Maybe I can only fall when the flowers are there?_

They lean over the hole, knowing there’s no danger. They see a distant spot of bright yellow below, and they sigh.

They know they have to finish these quests for the option to appear, and they know there’s a chance the secret to saving Sans is up here. Knowing that doesn’t help their loneliness, the tiny, selfish part of them that just wants to see their family, that just doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

They stare at the distant flowers until the sun is high, and then turn away.

This time last loop, they had already been in the underground; they’d speedrun the thing, hoping they had just gotten to him too late, but...well, here they were.

They were taking it much slower this time, keeping an eye out for anything that could help Sans later on. So far, there had been nothing. They hadn’t found any sign he’d existed before the war, but it wasn’t easy when all they had to go on was a first name. Especially when a google search of that first name only brings up font names and Latin translations.

They wish they had asked what kind of monster he was before he died.

-

Frisk is glad that the bus is free for kids under 12 in Ebbott city. They used a computer at their closest library to look up where the exhibit was and how much money they’d need to scrape together to get in. Not much. Five dollars, but that’s five they could use on something more practical, like food they don’t have to catch themself. They sigh, thinking of giving up for a millisecond.

No, this might be it! My mother is the only family member I never met. She had to be a mage.

At least they have the money right now. They hate having to beg. They hop on the 39 bus, transfer twice, and find themself across the street from the museum.

A class of college students crowds the entrance. They don’t know what kind of course would bring a class here, but they think they might be able to slip into the exhibit without any workers asking questions if they squeeze in between two students.

They wait until the workers are swamped and cut in front of a student looking for their money. They can’t help but feel a little guilty about that, but they think this is less likely to be suspicious.

It almost works, until the worker has already taken their money and gets a good look at whose hand the ticket is going into.

He stares over the counter, brows drawn low over dark eyes. He checks the ticket again, as if to confirm where they’re going, and they weigh the pros and cons of using a little bit of magic to confuse him.

 _No. You’re trying to be subtle_.

“Kid, are you sure that’s the exhibit you wanna see?”

They nod, reaching for the ticket. He doesn’t hand it over.

“It ain’t exactly kid friendly, but I guess I don’t got any rules against it...”

Then let me in!

He can plainly see their annoyance and he sighs.

“Okay. Alright. Just don’t come cryin’ to me if it’s too much for ya.” He glances around, expecting to see a harried parent running after them. His scowl deepens when he sees none.

“Where’s your parents?”

“My parents are dead.” They sign, hoping that will end the conversation. It’s at least half a lie, but it always works.

“Ah geez...” he runs a hand through his hair, looking at the exhibit they want to get into and piecing together some sort of narrative. They grit their teeth, reminding themself to be extra careful on the way home tonight.

“Okay. Fine.” Finally, he hands it over.

Frisk cannot get out of there fast enough.

The exhibit isn’t too big, which is a relief. They go through it fast, mostly ignoring the information about who was leading what during the lead-up to the war. They stop in front of a family portrait, mostly destroyed, recognizing Asnoch’s unmarred face and a hairy arm that might have belonged to Asgore. Someone sits to one side, but their face has been scratched out. Frisk can at least confirm it isn’t Toriel.

They ignore the text, hearing the little scribbling sound of their notebook writing it down for later, and finally enter the room with the databases. The main attraction, as far as they’re concerned.

The college class is mostly standing around awkwardly, not wanting to seem too uninterested, although it’s clear most of them are. The few who are interested look through the monster database. The mage database had probably been ignored entirely. Nobody would want to be seen as too interested. Nobody would want to be suspicious. The exhibit has a lot of visitors, which they had not been expecting. If they had known how packed it would be, they wouldn’t have come.

Frisk walks toward it, through a group of those students and past several serious-looking adults, all of whom do a double take. A couple of the students, ones with tired eyes and a barely perceptible thrum of magic in their veins, avoid looking at them altogether.

They figure they’ve already made themself obvious enough. No point in backing down now.

They go back to the year they were born, near the end of the Purge. Their mother must have been one of the last ones to go for her to have given them an autumn birthday.

Frisk wonders if their father had even known by then. They wonder if he’s even pieced it together now, or if he thinks something else gave them this power.

Their father always told them they looked like her, so that’s a starting point. They scroll through the year, stopping at each face, but nobody stands out. They read through the linked news articles for dozens of mages, then start ignoring them entirely. All they need is the image.

They check the year after their birth. The year after that. Nothing.

They check before. If she’d gone missing...well, maybe their father does know where their powers come from.

Nothing, but they find themself going back farther and farther, frustrated as they realize they’ve wasted their time.

They scroll a few more, desperately looking, and they stop at a very unusual looking man.

He had dark skin, long curly hair, and a deformed head. The whole thing seemed too short, too round, the eyes too small in the massive eyesockets. He was extremely short, if the photo of him standing next to his brother was any indication.

They check the date he died. A week before the war started.

They couldn’t help but look at the article.

**“Local mage murdered, comes back from the dead to name his killer**

**Police ruled the death a suicide, despite fervent protests from the mage’s family, lacking evidence and released the body for burial in less than a week.**

**The mage, who goes only by the name “Sans”, walked into his university dorm room two days later and borrowed his roommate’s cellphone to report his own murder.**

**Sans, who was born with multiple unique birth defects that have not been seen before or since, was studying Astrobiology at UoE when he was murdered. Despite his disability,** ” Frisk grimaces at that unfortunate phrase, **“Sans was one of the best students in the university’s history, with averages only overshadowed by his roommate and best friend Alphys of the Molten River people.**

**Police are looking into his resurrection to ascertain whether any laws were broken in the process, and investigating his roommate’s potential involvement.”**

-

Text from the exhibit “Past Misdeeds” at the Ebbott City Memorial Museum

During times of peace, monsters and humans were led by one person. From the Old World to the late 17th century monsters were ruled by the Dreemurr family and humans by a variety of human monarchs. It wasn’t until the Great Treaty that the Dreemurrs decided they were no longer needed and allowed the two races one democratically chosen leader.

It is said the Dreemurrs believed they would receive a sign when again they were necessary.

For former monster king Asnoch (And later, his son Asgore), this sign came in the form of golden flowers blooming wherever they went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pretty sure nobody cares but I’ve decided to keep this going


	17. Developments

An excerpt from _What Are Monsters?_ By Doctor Sans-Serif

Chapter Two: What’s the core for?

A lot of people-monsters and humans alike-don’t know what a core is, much less why some (but not all) monsters have them. A basic explanation is that a monster’s core is _what_ a monster is.

“Isn’t that a SOUL?” I hear you ask.

Well, no. Your SOUL is _who_ you are. Every SOUL is completely unique, shaped by the life you’ve lived from creation to now. Cores are interchangeable. They can be transplanted and synthesized and, more importantly, do not change over time.

Humans do not have cores. They instead have“DNA”-deoxyribonucleic acid-which is contained in each and every one of their cells. Many monsters have something similar, though they don’t necessarily have cells. Cores and these magical “cells” give your SOUL rules to work around when your form is being created. They also allow non-physical creatures to interact with the world around them. Without these, all a monster is is a SOUL, and that monster will not survive the gestation process.

A core is unlike aSOUL in another way; a monster can live without a core for several days. Anything past that, and that monster will need a synthetic core.

-

Grillby wakes in darkness and gets his legs under him, pushing himself into a kneeling position. He takes a second to look around, but there is nothing he can see but himself. His legs push against some invisible barrier as he stands. A spotlight is coming down from...where? Is the only source of light. It focuses on him as he stands and begins to walk.

His flame vibrates intensely. He isn’t sure why.

He feels like he’s just dumped a bucket of gasoline on himself and for a moment wonders if he’s somehow been reunited with his real core.

He checks to be sure.

Nope. Still a synthetic one.

Still, he’s never had this much raw energy with any replacement. He reaches out to find something to channel it into and dims at the response.

His armor is gone. His weapons are unreachable. He considers taking his original form-the one he used in his homeland before he had even heard of gender-to burn off some of it, but decides not to. It frightens the people here, and he hopes to come across another monster soon.

His shoes echo across a vast, unseen space as he walks and for a moment he stills, listening for the echoes of others walking. It’s unbearably silent. He hasn’t heard silence like that since a time before he had a soul. He doesn’t know how far he has walked, but he isn’t tired by the time something appears in front of him.

A second spotlight illuminates a figure.

A woman with a face covered by dripping hair, her seaweed colored skin covered only by a torn, wet burlap dress. He recognizes the woman, of course. How could he not? He doesn’t move, wondering if he could just walk away. Had she noticed him? He was frozen, fear making him weak.

He looks down at himself and tries to take a step back. He knows what she’ll do to him if she sees the way he’s dressed, but he can’t move at all. What happened? He had been walking fine, had looked around just moments before. What was wrong with him?

There is a long pause, him crackling softly and her dripping.

He struggles to move his legs, then tries something smaller. Fingers, toes, a slight tilt of the head. Nothing.

_Drip. Drip._

He wonders why she hasn’t made a move yet, and almost laughs at the answer.

_She doesn’t recognize me, does she?_

That was true. It wasn’t just how he dressed; he’d changed his whole body in the seven years since she last saw him. His flame wasn’t even the same colour, and he’d had their bond surgically removed. He changed back when he still went to see her, but now? He is himself. There is nothing to be afraid of. He lets his fear drain, cataloguing all of the changes he had made since he was freed.   


He tries to take a step back. He can’t.

“Don’t be like that, darling.” Says the soft pattering of water droplets against the floor.

He tries to struggle, tries to scream, but no sound escapes him. And if it did, who would hear?

“Behave yourself. I’ve had a very long day and I don’t want to deal with another one if your fits.” She drips sternly.

He does not behave himself. He fights for control of his body and when that fails, he heats his core, letting his form mostly disperse.

His soul pulses with _spite_ at her slow advance, at every wet footfall, preparing himself for a spectacularly painful explosion.

Several bonds reach out to him, panicked; his father, his brothers and cousins, his daughter, his son and...Sans? He realizes that Sans has been reaching out to him this whole time.

_Is that where that weird energy is coming from?_

The logical part of his mind kicks on. Wasn’t he just with Sans? How had he gotten here from Snowdin? Where _was_ here?

The world begins to change in unfathomable ways and Grillby watches her now, growing in conviction when he sees how her head moves. It doesn’t loll to one side, completely dead, as hers had.

This isn’t real he realizes, watching the illusion collapse.

He wakes in the air, being held up with gravity-defying blue magic. Sans stands in front of him, a calming smile on his face, and the human ahead, tearful.

“Let’s calm down, eh? I’m sure we can all work something out,” Sans is saying, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders raised in a kind of shrug.

Is he really trying to spare her? She’s going to kill him!

Sans’ menu isn’t hidden from him and he does check it to be sure-Sans can’t be that stupid, can he?- and narrows his eyes. He’s not using mercy at all, even though the human looks like she’s about to spare him. He’s acting.

He’s faking mercy.

Grillby had seen it before, but those merciless few who knew how to use this tactic... they had all forsaken mercy entirely, broken their options and given themselves over to cruelty.

Something appears behind her and then, there is light. She falls to the ground, and Grillby covers his mouth. He tries to stifle the horrified pop, but Sans turns to him anyway.

“Well shit...you weren’t supposed to see that, Sunshine.”

-

Alphys shakes as she pens her proposal for monster tests of DETERMINATION. Anxiety and excitement blend together into a dizzying chemical cocktail that keeps her from doing the very basics of normal functions.

Everything seems fine. Her patients are doing very well. She released two more just last week, and though the third was eaten, he was fine up until then.

Still, she feels like something terrible is about to happen. The proposal is mostly finished. It just needs one more signature and the royal seal and she’ll be good to go.

She sighs, not for the first time thinking she should just give up on this. It’ll take a big push to get her to submit this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have returned  
> I come bearing words  
> Also, thank you to the people who commented saying they liked this! I was having a really bad day when I posted the last chapter, and you guys really made it better.


	18. Merciless

_Batsy Hart’s Practical Guide To Soulmates_

Once you’ve met your soulmate, it’s best to spend time with them as soon as possible to figure out how your particular bond has worked itself out.

It’s important that you figure out what effect this is going have on your life as fast as you can. If you fall in love with your soulmate or vice versa quickly, it will be automatic upon a first. Your first date, your first kiss, etc, though not always so obvious. I fell in love with my husband the first time I saw him slip on ice when we visited Snowdin.

If you feel no draw to your soulmate, then there is no need to continue any contact with them. You might even find yourself hating your soulmate. That’s normal!

You might fall in love normally, but thats up to the two of you.

A pair of soulmates who are destined to fall in love can go from first meeting to married in months.

-

“It’s not what you think, Sunshine.”

Grillby stares at the plate of birch bark and wood chips Sans gave him, worried about him burning off his fuel too quickly. He wonders if Sans bought them for him.

They’re sitting at Sans’ living room table, his pet rock moved gently to one side.

Grillby hasn’t touched his birch at all, still thinking about what had happened when they came into town.

He’d been walking slow, not wanting to let Sans out of his sight. He was conflicted, because he wanted to be able to love his soulmate so badly, and his bond had told him things that conflicted so severely with what he’d seen, but... he was afraid.

The Dogi had run up to them the moment they crossed the threshold into town; spears raised at first, but then annoyed when they saw no human.

“What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be-“ Sans held out the SOUL, quieting her protest.

“Human wasn’t much for running.” Sans lied. Grillby didn’t even lift his head, too consumed with his simultaneous thought processes: of course my soulmate had to be like this, and I was absolutely useless in that fight, I might as well have not been there.

The Dogi sniffed them both over, looking for injuries.

“Grillby, are you hurt or something? You look-“

“I think I am done fighting.” Sans reached up to pat his back, but caught himself. Grillby felt sorry for him. Grillby was happy Sans hadn’t touched him.

Dogaressa nodded. Dogamy whined.

“Good call.”

“Why?”

Grillby had walked past them, only barely hearing Sans’ vague excuse about how she’d been a psychomancer.

He’d steered Grillby into his house after that.

“I thought she’d keep you out for more than five turns.” Sans admits out of nowhere, his voice an apologetic mumble. Grillby starts, wonders how long they had been sitting in silence.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. I’m sorry, I’m just stressed...you weren’t supposed to know about this, and I...really hope you know how to keep a secret.”

Grillby grazes his claws across his forearm, relieved at their sharpness, and says nothing.

Sans’ eyelights track the movement and Grillby feels a muffled ache down their bond. How must he really feel, if even he can’t suppress all of it?

“I’m not gonna hurt you if you don’t. I told you, it ain’t like that. I’m not a bad guy, honest, I’ve just been through some things.”

He has to keep himself from trying to comfort Sans. He puts a hand over the plate of wood and begins burning it to avoid touching him.

“Do you have a MERCY option?”

Sans blows an unnecessary breath through his teeth.

“Gettin’ straight to it, huh? No.”

That’s the truth, Grillby can tell that much through the bond.

“Did you break it, or did someone else?” He’d heard of it happening before, though it was rare.

“I...was encouraged, let’s say, but I did it myself. I didn’t really understand what I was doing at the time. Doesn’t make it right, but...”

Truth.

“Where are the pieces?”

“Honest to god, I don’t know. I went back to, uh, where it happened when I was still alive, but I guess someone took it. If I had the pieces-“

“Why would anyone take that?”

Grillby’s pretty sure monsters can’t lie through bonds but that makes so little sense he can’t help but assume Sans is lying.

Sans shrugged.

“The guy that encouraged me probably had a pretty big interest in keeping it broken. He was brought back not long after I, um...after I killed him.” Sans laughs, even though he doesn’t look very happy.

“I’m not making a very good case for myself, am I?”

Grillby is quiet. _It sounds like it’s not his fault..._

“Why are you being so vague?”

“I don’t exactly feel like unpacking a traumatic event with a guy I’ve spoken to maybe three times? Even if it’s...you.” He says, gesturing vaguely in Grillby’s direction and tactfully ignoring the way he flinches.

_That’s fair._

“Are you intending to get it fixed?”

“If I ever find the pieces, yeah.”

“Why did you break it if you were just going to get it fixed?”

He asks, and regrets it immediately. Questions like that got him beaten more times than he could count, but Sans just sighs.

“Well, I was twelve. I got help between then and now, as you can imagine.” Grillby gapes at him.

_What kind of childhood would drive someone that young from MERCY?_

“But you still benefit from it...”

“If that’s what you’d call it, yeah, I guess I do. You’re asking about the fake MERCY option, right?” A nod, “I don’t like the way I got it, but if I’ve got a way to stop a human killing other monsters I’m morally obligated to use it no matter where it came from. Right?”

_That makes a certain amount of sense._

“Besides, it’s not like this thing doesn’t have problems. Sure, I can kill faster sometimes, but the fact that I have to justify myself to you... I can tell you’ve got a lot of bad ideas about how this whole thing works. When I said I hoped you could keep a secret, I meant that people tend to act different once they know. This town was my last chance to live a normal life.”

Grillby can’t help himself. Sans looks so tired and their bond is sharing so much sadness he can’t be scared of the man.

“I won’t tell anyone, so don’t go using past tense just yet.”

Sans’ smile twitches a little. He’s not as expressive as other skeletons, not even close, but Grillby gets the feeling he’s relieved.

“Thank you. I appreciate that. I love this town and the people in it, and I’d hate to have to leave.”

“I would hate to drive you out.”

They both shift uncomfortably in the silence that follows, knowing there’s another thing they should get to talking about.

Grillby broaches it first.

“Why didn’t you tell me once you figured out we were soulmates? How long have you known?”

He’s sure he already knows the answer. _If I wasn’t so boring, I’m sure he would have been interested._

“...a while. I didn’t tell you because I felt weird about just walking up to you and saying “I’m your soulmate and I’ve been madly in love with you since we first met so you have to fall in love with me sometime”. I wanted to see if you were interested without the pressure, you know?”

“You’ve known since we first met?”

_He loves me already?_

It’s a sweet sentiment but man, does Grillby kind of want to punch him. And love at first sight is so rare...

Sans’ eyelights go out as he realizes what he’s just said. He looks like he’s choosing his words very carefully.

“No, but I’ve known I loved you for that long.”

-

Sans sits on her examination table, his leg bobbing in an incessant nervous tic. He’d called her earlier, told her what the human had done, and said he needed treatment. Not urgent, he promised.

She’d never done anything as fast as she had signed and sent off that proposal for monster testing when he gave her the body count. Seven in a day, dead if she did nothing.

“Alph, I gotta get this thrall gone.” Sans says as soon as she’s set up.

She looks him over. Not at all what she’d been expecting, but almost as troubling.

“What did you do?”

“Nothin’ illegal, it’s just making me act like a damn fool. My soulmate and me were going after that human and I let him stay out for the whole fight like I didn’t think he could handle it. I forgot to hide my menu too, so now he knows I can’t do mercy.”

“Oh dear...no wonder you want it gone so bad. Did you explain it to him?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if he bought it or if he thinks he doesn’t have a choice, because...I’m in love with him already.”

“Jeez, already?”

“Oh yeah, it was instant. He said he’d give me a chance and gods, I don’t want to mess this up.”

“Okay. I’m...going to be busy for the next little while, but I’ll see to your thrall first. Were you looking to get that done today?” He squeezes the leather of the table, his fingers sharpening with his anxiety.

“Careful, Sans.” She lifts his hands from it and rubs his knuckles to calm him down.

“Yeah. Okay. Do it today if you’ve got the stuff, just...I’m starting to rethink it, so gimme enough to put the boys out too, okay?”

She grimaces. That’s a lot of anesthesia and she’s still not sure how the “boys” connect to him.

“Summon them, and I’ll try to dose them to keep them down.” She still has to limit how much she gives him.

Sans snaps his fingers. One, two, three, four, five, six times, and six doglike skulls appear around him. One of them noses Alphys’ skull and starts to whine for treats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they’re good boys


	19. Those Darned Kids

Important things to remember about Sans!

He might be able to remember resets sometimes he says things about what you do or does different things but the next time he pretends he didn’t?

Likes snow and ice and cold. Good at ice skating!

I think he has weather effects?

Can’t stop smiling but I don’t know why other skeletons can?

Friends with everyone except Doggo also friends with the Riverperson!

Used to be a teacher? Taught at Fuku’s old school for a while.

Really smart!

Has a degree in something to do with stars but idk what it is but I know I can ask Grillby about next time I see him or I can ask Sans if he wants to tell me

Always named Sans which is a dumb name

Used to be human

Always looked like that

Check out UoE to see where sans used to live so you can snoop around

(Below is a hand drawn image of Sans’ face saying “Why can’t you keep your nose out of my business, pumpkin?”)

-

It happens on their way back home from the museum. Frisk hears the Man In The Car, now the Man Standing In Nathan’s Doorway Talking, and hides just around the corner. He was never very observant and he’s focused on Nathan. They almost peek around the corner to be sure it’s him-it is dark, after all-but decides against it.

They want to eavesdrop because what was He doing here, but they know their life is more important. And so is avoiding that fate worse than death.

“Jack? What the heck are you doing here? If you’d called ahead-“ Frisk’s hands tremble as they conjure something they’d asked to be taught before Sans’ last death.

“Sorry, Nate, I just got something important to ask about. Couldn’t wait.”

Frisk sets a tiny red beetle on the ground and directs it toward the front door. They sneak farther around the back of the store and send their consciousness into the insect.

“Alright then. What’s going on?” It sits a few feet away, hoping it isn’t too obvious.

“Last year, my kid ran away. I heard some rumors they’ve been seen around here. Do you recognize this kid?”

Frisk sees and hears Him pull an old photo out of His pocket and panics. They don’t make the conscious choice to fly the insect at His face, but they find themself changing the beetle into a large red bird and when their wings fold, they don’t stop it.

They claw at Him desperately and see the photo fall from his hand as he reaches up to wave them away. They feel their talons gouge into soft flesh and Frisk grimaces in their real body.

They dive and grab the photo, dodging His hands and ignoring Nathan’s shrieks.

They fly the bird off, leaving it to its own devices once it gets far enough away.

They can hear cursing from the front door and Nathan trying to get Him inside to get looked at.

“Where’s the fucking picture?” They can hear Him rustling around, looking for it.

“I think the bird took it.” Nathan says, sounding confused.

“That wasn’t a bird,” He says, standing quickly, “Where are you, freak? I know you’re watching!”

“Jack, calm down! Who are you talking to?”

“...they look like their mother. If you see them, give me a call. They’re dangerous, Nathan. This fucking kid-“ He stumbles off, passing within a few feet of them, wiping blood from His eyes. Nathan doesn’t ask Him to stay.

They hear Nathan’s response, though they aren’t sure if He does.

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

-

Grillby walks in the forest, waiting for the first incision with bated breath. Is Sans removing their bond?

Of course he understands, but Sans had been talking about how much he loved him just yesterday.

He senses the cut and relaxes as he feels no pain.

_If it’s not that, what is he having surgery on?_

Grillby is startled in crossing the bridge by a patter of tiny feet in the snow behind him.

“Hey Mr. Flamesman!” He turns and sees that tiny lizard monster, the one with no arms, running towards him.

He dips his head politely at the kid and stops to let him pass, trying to keep his anxiety down. The kid doesn’t pass. That doesn’t help his anxiety.

“I heard you weren’t fighting anymore.”

He sighs and nods.

“Man, are you sure? I saw you spar with Undyne the last time she was here and it was awesome!”

He smiles briefly and walks across the bridge, keeping an eye on the boy behind him. When he’d first seen the boy, he’d almost decided toavoid meeting the family entirely, but the boy was fine. Just like any other child.

Nothing like the one he’d met in Waterfall.

“...yes, I am certain. I am a little too old for that now.” The kid jumps and Grillby puts a hand out to steady him.

“Careful now. I do not want you to hurt yourself.”

“You can talk?”

“Sometimes.” He says, smiling as the kid runs ahead to inspect a sapling.

He catches movement through the trees and narrows his eyes, wondering if the kid’s parents know he’s out here. He thinks he sees something blue moving in the distance, but turns his attention back to the child. His father at least is bright yellow, so Grillby is certain it isn’t him.

“Anyway, I am sorry to disappoint you.”

“Don’t worry, I still get to watch Undyne beat up bad dudes!”

He rocks on his feet, tail slowly moving from left to right and back again.

“Uh, but if I’m honest...that’s not really why I’m talking to you.”

Grillby tilts his head in confusion.

“You’ve been on the surface, right?”

He nods, letting soft greens colour his face. The kid looks anxious.

“So you know stuff about humans?”

_Ah._

“I know as much as any other veteran, yes.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that we’ve never had problems with humans before now?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been here for a long time, but the last couple months, there’s been four humans! Does nobody else think this is weird?”

Grillby blinks at the boy, surprised.

“...no, you’re right. Four humans, most of them children...” he narrows his eyes at the kid.

“Why did you come to me with this?”

“I brought it up to my dad, but he didn’t want to talk about it, and my older sister lives in Hotland, she’s already so busy, and I dunno, you just seem like you’d listen.”

“You were right. Something must be going on on the surface.” They’re quiet for a few seconds before the kid turns back to him.

“Anyway, I’m going back to Snowdin. Thanks for this, Mr. Flamesman!” He said, running off.

“Hold on, the town is that way!” Grillby says, pointing. The kid grins, not even pausing as he runs.

“I can find my own way back. This old forest is full of shortcuts.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kiinda wanted to write out a surgical procedure for the thrall but oh well I wrote Frisk’s first third instead...which I hate  
> Added one 1 new sentence


	20. A Big Mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The old chapter kinda read like Grillby was just being ableist so I added 1 sentence to make it clear why he was uncomfortable

Alphys is worried about Sans. It’s been a week since the surgery, and Sans is still having trouble coping with its loss and just as importantly, with the medication he had to take for the pain.

In the immediate aftermath of the procedure, Alphys had barely given him anything, but she’d quickly realized Sans was suffering.

Alphys was careful when she dosed him, but she was realistic about the chances of a relapse. He’d only been on a replacement drug for a few months and while it seemed to be working, she knew he’d go through withdrawal once the stuff was out of his system.

From Sans’ call, it’s already happening.

“Hey, doc, it’s fine for me to be getting cold sweats again, right? Like, it’s just a thing i’m gonna have to grin and bear?”

“Yeah, sorry... We don’t have anything else for treating pain after surgery that even works on skeletons, y-you know?" She chastises herself for stuttering in a phone call with _Sans_ of all people.

“It’s cool,” He says, in a way that tells her it’s not, “It ain’t your fault I’m craving that stuff.”

She still feels guilty. Sans is her best friend and she should know how to help him, but she’s lost. She owes him her life, but how can she repay him when she’s so incompetent?

“You know, I kinda feel guilty now that it’s gone.”

“That’s normal.”

“Still feels bad.”

“I know. But I promise if you asked your soulmate he would have told you to get rid of it.”

“I know. And it’s not like i don’t still love him. It’s just...hard, you know?

“I understand.”

Sans seems to realize he showed a genuine emotion and automatically begins minimizing it.

“I gotta say though, I’m feeling a lot better. i can leave the town again, so that’s a plus.”

Alphys hears a knock on her door and runs off to answer it, shooting him a quick, “I think that’s my casualties so I gotta go do science stuff, call me if u have any problems , bye,” and hangs up.

-

Alphys lays out her new patients on the rows of beds that had appeared in the lab space, wondering for the eightieth time how it knew what she needed.

Once that’s done, she weighs them all and calculates their dose...she hopes she does, at least.

She guiltily moves Mettaton’s half-finished new body off her table, then re-examines the SOULS she’s been given.

She’s stalling, she knows it but she still takes the time to ensure they can withstand being put in the extractor. If stalling helped her catch something important, it’d be worth it.

They’re all fine, as far as she can tell. Perfectly healthy, as though it had only been moments instead of weeks, or months since they were removed from their bodies.

She finally brought them to that machine, the one she’d blueprinted and built in only a day. She had no idea how she’d done it so quickly. Sure, it was based on Sans’ “boys”, but on a much larger scale and draining a different substance much faster.

They were placed inside and the machine powered up. It sounded like a long gasp played backward and made her shiver every time it happened. A pause.

Then... ** _FUOOM._**

She leaves them in there; they’ll be as safe there as anywhere else. She takes the full DT vials and corks them carefully. She walks into the room all her patients are in and sees a pale figure, barely taking form, standing over one of the beds. She watches it reach toward her patient and then glances around for the empty bed.

They’re all full. She approaches it on shaking feet, but picks up on the cold in the room. It wasn’t this cold before.

_Is that a ghost?_

_Doesn’t really look like one._

The figure pets the canine on the bed, as if trying to comfort her. Alphys approaches them with her hands up, but their head whips around.

The figure’s face is featureless for a second before a mouth makes itself known, forming a sheepish smile.

And then it vanishes.

-

Grillby sighs as he feels pain bloom inside his stomach and leans against the counter. It’s his bar’s opening night, so he powers through the pain. He tries not to think too hard about the cause of the psychosomatic pain; he has to stay on his feet for another eight hours and can’t afford to put this off for any longer.

He cannot use his health as an excuse. Still, he lifts his shirt to make sure he’s not carrying a second coming of Heats.

No, just his usual potbelly.

He flips the sign to ‘open’, takes the obscurant off the window and returns to the counter.

There’s another pang, and Grillby is grateful to how inexpressive his flame is to organics.

After only ten minutes, he’s worried he’s made a mistake. He’s been watching when the people in the town leave to visit bars in Hotland and New Home. He’s seen them, two or three to the Riverperson’s boat, nearly every night.

Certainly, the young people would probably prefer a rowdier scene; those canines especially, but he expects his bar will be just fine for most in town.

Sans goes out, too. Sometimes he doesn’t return until the morning. Last night, he hadn’t returned until noon.

Grillby wonders who he was with. He is certain Sans is not spoken for already.

The thought of him in someone else’s bed is almost too much. He knows he has no right to be jealous; he said he would get to know Sans and start a relationship organically, if a relationship is what they want.

Until then, Sans is a free agent.

But he can’t help himself.

He decides that if he has time, he’s going to practice mixing, but as he looks up, he sees one of the Lapine-Annie, he thinks-considering the ‘open’ sign.

She comes in, much to his surprise. Though it’s occurring to him now that he’s not the best at judging the ages of organics, he could have sworn she was a very young woman.

“So this is what you’ve been up to this whole time!”

He smiles, his customer service face falling into place with practiced ease, as if he’d done this before.

Three hours pass, people filtering in slowly, congratulating him on finally opening his bar. The pain is fading, too.

Scarlet Feather came in at the two hour point, cheerily preceding the canine unit. Another big surprise.

Dogaressa was as aggressive as usual, and Grillby half-considers kicking her out. It’s only his first day open, so he has to accept it. Can’t make a fuss on his first day. He’d honestly hoped she’d relax after a few drinks, but no.

Four hours and he gets the last surprise visitors of the day. His father and brother walk through the door, chatting idly. He grins, already getting a glass to start up an old-fashioned for his father.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you two today!”

Apollyon laughs.

“I wanted to prove to Asmodeus you’d actually done it!” His brother grumbles something to himself, and Grillby chuckles.

“Can I get you something?”

Grillby sees Sans at the door and watches him as his brother hums and haws over what he wants.

Sans smiles at the sign, his face pulling ever so slightly upward. Grillby is very proud of it; he’d painted the thing himself, painstakingly, over several days.

Sans walks away, still smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t believe cis people could see me today  
> Also, Sans Fucks


	21. Fear

3.

Frisk heads to Nathan’s store, hoping they can get something from him today. They’ve had no luck fishing, no luck foraging, and no luck begging for three days.

They’ve got some money left, just a couple of dollars, but saving it will do them no good if they die.

Frisk sees Him loitering outside and bolts as He sees them, tripping over their own feet and knowing that they won’t get far with their blurred vision and weak legs.

They run through back streets for Ruth’s house, only a few blocks away.

They trip on the corner of her street, smacking their face against the ground, and they hear Him shout something unintelligible behind them. They try to drag themself forward before scrambling to their feet. He grabs them and they punch Him in the face, acting purely on instinct. They wipe blood from their face as they run, hoping she’s home and that she’ll take their side.

Ruth is out in her garden, digging to bury tulip bulbs, it looks like.

When she sees Him running after Frisk, she stands and pulls them behind her.

She wields her trowel like a weapon.

“Get the hell away from them!”

“That’s my kid!” He says through heaving breaths.

She looks back at Frisk for confirmation.

“I don’t know him.” They lie. She nods and adjusts her grip on the trowel, one hand going back to take Frisk’s.

His lip curls with disgust, but he knows he’s beat.

“Back off.” She looks him over. “You leave this kid alone or I’ll make you wish you were dead.”

“I’ll be back for you, freak. And you’re gonna regret getting in my way, lady. This kid’s a fucking monster.”

She takes a step toward him, and he runs off.

-

_Ruth knows something is off about me._

A mute kid rolls into a neighborhood at the fringe of a city and starts solving everyone’s problems in unusual ways with no parental oversight and expects to fly under the radar?

_Get real._

Now she’s escorting them home. She’d refused to let them leave her house alone. Frisk wonders how much is suspicion and how much is concern.

Frisk considered going to a youth shelter, but gave that thought up. They are fairly certain they aren’tbeing followed and they just want to get back to their house in the ruined village.

They also aren’t sure if he’d be watching those, and they’d like to avoid a second run-in.

They did warn her about the walk before they left, but she didn’t back down.

It is dark by the time they get to the village. Ruth had brought a flashlight, though they itch to light their own way.

Ruth doesn’t seem very interested in the village, only briefly shining her light into each one she passes.

She speaks after a few seconds.

“So, you live alone out here?”

“Yes.”

“Where are your parents?”

“I don’t have any.”

“Did they die?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve been alone for a long time.”

“Was that man actually your father?”

“Sadly.”

She chuckles.

“No wonder you live out here.”

Frisk smiles. At least she understands.

They approach their home, but balk at the giant, horned figure who squeezes out of the building.

Asnoch and Ruth stare, dumbfounded, at one another.

-

40.

Frisk is careful going into Ebbott City, looking over their shoulder constantly.

They hadn’t seen their father over the last two weeks. They know better than to let their guard down. They had only been into the city once or twice, just long enough to finish a quest or pick a new one up before scurrying back to the mountain.

But they have work to do.

Taking the bus, they feel exposed, watched. The subway is an ambush waiting to be sprung. A photographer on the road a silent watcher, waiting to get a clear look at his prey.

They keep their hood up, hoping their hair covers most of their face. They really need a haircut, but they’ll take any advantage they can get.

Frisk gets off the subway and stares at the University of Ebbott across the street. The moon peeks around a cloud, bathing the campus with pale light, then decides against it.

Frisk has no clue where the records are kept, realistically. If they’re digital or physical. It could take them several nights just to figure that out.

For the first time in many, many resets, Frisk wishes the player was here. The player always seems to know what to do.

Though, considering that time the player made them fight monsters to get gold for Temmie Armor and eat only Dog Salad for about two hours...maybe they're better doing this themself.

They sit across from UoE, doing their best to radiate some sort of intimidating aura. Frisk conjures another beetle to possess and sends it toward the building.

...

Hours pass, but they find nothing of use. The records must be kept digitally somewhere. They return to their body and make the long trip back home.

...

The next day, they dutifully trudge to Nathan’s storefront and wait to be noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a fucking nightmare to write~  
> I forgot the one joke line i meant to put in so i had to fix that  
> i'm so sorry Frisk.....but i had to pay for her colleg.......


	22. A Father In Three Acts

The people in town look at him differently. They talk quietly when he passes, glancing at and away in a fraction of a second. Everyone in town-except Sans, who was as he always is-avoided his eyes.

He should have known they would react this way. His father and brother were obvious in what they were. They took no steps to hide themselves when they walked through the town.

Demons are hated by humans, distrusted by monsters, and a small town like this is an awfully bad place to be one.

Not that Grillby  is  one-at least by core-but his family are and either by association or assumption, he is being treated as one.

A week after his opening day, he hears a conversation as he approaches the shop in town and pauses as someone says his name inside.

“Nah, Grillby’s definitely a demon. His family wasn’t even hiding it. I mean, they had huge horns and they both had...y’know.” Grillby imagines that here, Scarlet Feather indicates the back of his wing to refer to their seals. He’s confused by his sudden ability to hear through walls, but realizes the shop has a window propped open when he catches a whiff of fresh-baked cinnamon buns.

“They looked like they were hosted in humans, too.” Scarlet Feather continues. Grillby knows he should walk away, but he can’t help himself.

“I thought Lanette was just drunk when she said it! D’you think they’re coming to live here too?” One of the fish people in town, Grillby thinks, taking a few tentative steps toward the window. One of his cousins had been thinking of moving in.  Though, he blends in better than most...

“I always thought it was a weird choice for a guy made of fire to live here. I just thought it was to get away from that whole thing with his wife...now I wonder if someone found out he was a parasite.” He flares a furious white.  What an accusation!

“Will two cut it out?” The shopkeeper’s uncharacteristically sharp tone is punctuated by her chair squeaking as she stands.

“I’m just saying! A quiet guy like him has got to be hiding something!” The fish says, defensive.

“That man has been nothing but polite and respectful since he arrived in town, and it’s not right for you to go around slandering him like that. And if more demons in town means more fine citizens like him, then I’m all for ‘em!”

Grillby’s never heard her yell like that before. Scarlet and the fish mumble apologies and continue shopping. 

Grillby decides not to get his groceries right now. He goes home, thinking about how he has no proof he isn’t a demon. About how he covered his face with flowers in every old picture, when he was too young to understand he had no need to. About that ill-advised period he wore a mask everywhere.

Fuku doesn’t even look up as he enters the back door.

“Yes, you can go outside.”

He scowls at her response. He hasn’t had that problem in a while.

“I didn’t ask.”

She raises her head and laughs at his response, but realizes he’s not amused.

“Dang, that was almost confident. You mad at me? I didn’t mean to bring that up, I know it’s been a few months...”

Grillby shakes his head at her, carefully undoing the buttons on his coat and idly thinking he should scale back his core mass; his coat is getting pretty tight around the middle.

“I am fine. Well....I am angry, but not at you. I just heard some people talking about demons and decided I would rather not deal with them right now.”

“Oh, gotcha,” She grins at the height and intensity of his flame before remembering he still has a temporary core, “Man, you’re mad! You should go and hang around Sans’ sentry station. He always makes you smile.”

She’s glad he’s letting himself feel these things now, but she worries about his health.

“I might just do that, but I will be fine either way. If my core broke down every time I felt something, I would be dust by now.”

She winces and he remembers how touchy she’s been lately on the concept of his mortality.  Has she seen something?  He often forgets her visions are of the near future, unlike his.

“I mean, I guess so.”

“I will go see him if it means you will not worry. But just remember, you forced me to, okay?” He says with a wink.

A comically exasperated smile opens her jagged slit of a mouth.

“I’m not-“

“I mean,  if you insist , I suppose this  decrepit old man can probably make it out to see his soulmate.” He says, dramatically leaning on her.

“You’re ageless!” She protests, pushing him off as both of them fight a smile.

“But I’m  billions  of years old! And it’s  soooo far! ”

“You’re my least favourite dad. Of all of my dads, you’re the worst.” Fuku is smiling as she says it.

“I’m your only dad.”

“That  you  know of.”

He puts his hands on his hips.

“What did I tell you about bringing home stray dads?”

“This one didn’t have a collar or anything!”

“Unbelievable.”

“I promise I’ll take care of him!”

“You’d better!” He says, redoing the buttons on his coat and wagging a stern finger at her.

-

Grillby hums as he approaches Sans’ sentry station, passing his training dummy. Things have been going good between them for the past few weeks. Even with Sans’ nocturnal activities and his unexpected jealousy, Sans certainly knows how to charm the pants off him at every chance he gets...figuratively, of course.

He’s not perfect. He’s secretive, not particularly good-looking, and takes very little seriously, but those are little things, comparatively.

They haven’t gone on their first date yet, but Grillby is certain one of them will get the courage to ask the other out soon. 

Grillby pauses as a thought hits him. 

Maybe Sans is waiting for me to ask him out, since I’m not in love with him yet? He did say we would move at my pace...

Perhaps he should start planning something out? He starts walking again, his mind faraway. He hadn’t considered that he might have to be proactive in starting this relationship. 

He half considers admitting he’s a meek to Sans-surely Sans would take over planning if he knew-but he doesn’t like the implications of that scenario. He doesn’t want Sans to think of him like that. And that’s assuming he doesn’t already know; after all, someone like him having their own business is a big deal in Hotland.

Sans doesn’t need to know. I just hope nobody back home has said anything.

That brings him back to the original topic. Date ideas.

What does Sans even like to do?

Other than read science fiction novels and watch bad science fiction movies, he isn’t sure.

He mulls it over until the sentry station becomes visible, draws near, and he catches a glimpse of Sans inside.

Sans lays completely still in his post, right eyelight out and form limp. He isn’t wearing a shirt again today, the sharp cage of his ribs visible even from a distance. He isn’t sure if it’s intended to be attractive or comfortable, but it has to be cold.

He must be sleeping...

He hesitates, even though he knows Sans wants to be woken when he’s around. Sans always seems tired, even when he’s telling jokes and flirting.  Must be that illness he refuses to speak of...

Still, he approaches.

Something seems wrong as he does, and it only takes seconds to see the problem; something black and viscous is worming its way into Sans’ mouth. At first, he thinks it’s a tongue-some undead still have them-but he’s fairly certain that isn’t how they’re supposed to look, nor do they move like  that .

His left eyelight’s still on  says the only part of his mind not gibbering with panic, odd, isn’t it?

He watches it slip inside, too quick to be without agency, and sees Sans’ skull tilt. His other eye lights up white, but he seems dazed as he looks around. Grillby sucks air in to calm himself, letting it burn and trying not to jump to conclusions.

Maybe it’s not a parasite! Maybe it’s just a symbiote he never mentioned! Maybe it’s a new arrangement!

It takes Sans a good long moment to realize Grillby is there, but his smile is unnervingly normal. 

“Hey you! Have you been waiting for me to wake up?”

No, he’s not quite calm. He seems anxious, just a slight shiftiness to his eyelights.

Two options pop up.

I just got here.

Ask about the black thing (warning-this could have immediate negative consequences!)

That option is an uncomfortable flashing red, though whether that’s anxiety or actual intuition, he isn’t sure.

“I just got here.” He signs, feeling dizzy.  It sounds like him...

“Oh, good!” He notices Grillby’s nervousness and his sockets scrunch up in that way Grillby usually finds positively precious.

“Are we on Mars right now? Cuz you look pretty spaced out. Everything okay?”

He can’t help the laugh that escapes him.

That’s definitely my Sans!

“You almost never laugh at my jokes. Something must be  really wrong. You’re the hardest audience I’ve ever had.”

Speech options pop up again. Three this time. He doesn’t like it when these appear.

Be honest. (This action could have immediate negative consequences!)

Tell him you think you’re hallucinating. (Pity factor adds +2 to bluff)

Mislead him (unlocked by demon prejudice event, pity factor adds +2 to bluff)

He’s tempted to be honest. It’s Sans, his soulmate! If he can’t trust Sans, who can he trust? There’s a long pause. 

Something black drips onto one of Sans’ ribs from inside his skull and Grillby realizes he’s let some unseen timer run out.

“What  is  that?” He asks, against his own will. 

Sans looks down at it and then at him. He sees Grillby’s expression and grinds his teeth together for a second.

“Oh. So you did see that.”

Grillby doesn’t speak.

“You’re good at seeing things you really shouldn’t, you know? You aren’t usually here at this time and the one day you are...”

He sighs, wiping the black slime from his ribs.

“I’m sorry...”

Sans shakes his head. 

“I should’ve been more careful.”

“What-“

“I’m not going to talk about it.” He grimaces as another drop hits his ribs and reaches into his station to retrieve a napkin.

“But-“

“Don’t push it,” Grillby’s hands still, but he tries not to flinch, “Please.”

Sans says, softening his voice. 

“I will not ask again.”

“I’m sorry, I know you hate me keeping secrets. Maybe I’ll tell you about it one of these days. Just have to find the right time.”

Grillby knows Sans is just placating him. Sans does intend to, but he likely won’t ever find “the right time”. He seems like one of those people.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I mean, from the colour of your flame, it matters a lot.”

He glances down at himself. Blue. He hasn’t gone blue in a while. 

“I’ll tell you what that was when I’m ready, I promise, but keep this whole thing between us in the meantime, will ya?”

“I will not tell anyone. I just wonder what it is I am not telling.”

“It’s not important.”

If that was true, Sans wouldn’t be so quick to shut any questions down, but he doesn’t point that out. He doesn’t want to push his luck any farther.

“Alright. But I have two questions I need an answer to. 

Sans is silent, so he continues.

“Is Sans  your name?”

“Yes.”

“Will I have to interact with whoever is not Sans?”

“There’s just Sans.” 

He runs a frustrated hand though his flame.

“Fine.” He says, and sighs.

There’s a long, awkward pause.

“What brought you out this way anyways?”

“Ironically, I came here to calm down.”

Sans lets out a short bark of laughter.

“Man, I’m real good at this, aren’t I?”

“It’s fine.”

“Well, why don’t we get you settled, then?”

Conversation started slowly, but with disturbing ease became their usual banter. It was an hour to opening when Grillby had the will to disentangle their mismatched fingers and make his way back to his bar.

When he passed the training dummy, he had to stop and stare.

Something had torn the dummy in half.

-

Grillby was adjusting the straps on Heats’ backpack when he spoke up, unprompted.

“I met my dad yesterday.”

“I thought you’d already met him in a dream?” He said, his hands not pausing in their work.

“Yeah, but he was here this time.”

“In the house?”

“No. Outside. He looks different now.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yes. He told me not to tell you his name, though. He said something bad might happen if I did.”

That did make Grillby stop. He turned his son around to look at him. Heats looked nervous.

“What do you mean?”

“He just said if I told, something bad might happen to you. He said you’d forget anyways,” and then a quiet “I don’t think I was supposed to tell you that.”

“But I’m glad you did. Didn’t I tell you you’re supposed to tell me things like this?”

“I did!”

“I think he was probably just joking about something bad happening if you told me. Why don’t you give me his name so I can have a...talk with him about his jokes?”

“It wasn’t a joke.”

“Do you still see him around?”

“He left. Everything went black and then he was gone. He’s in town sometimes but people don’t see him like I do.”

Grillby ran a hand over his flame.

“I think I am going to walk you to school for the next little while, alright?”

“Okay!” He says brightly.

...

They talked. Heats wasn’t comfortable, but he’d gotten excited when Grillby mentioned that he would be happier knowing who Heats’ father was. 

Happy to give whoever’s posing as him a piece of my mind, that is.

On the way to Heats’ school, he perks up and points.

“There’s my dad!”

Grillby looks. Something terrible happens. He wakes up two days later with the buzz of a hangover and a confused idea of the past three days. He was fairly certain he had gotten into fights with just about everyone he loved, though the reason why was now unclear to him.

There’s a knock at the door and he stands, groaning unhappily.

Sans is there, his eyelights distant and sockets narrowed.

“I, uh...got your text.”

“I am very sorry.” He starts, not even sure what he’d texted Sans.

“No, I get it. I didn’t realize it upset you so much.”

“I...do not recall what I said to you. I...am not sure why I did, either...”

“Yeah. I figured. Uh, your kids, by the way, are with Apollyon.”

“Perhaps they should stay there for now...” 

He has no idea what he did to have them removed from his home, but if he was that bad over an event he’s forgotten, he isn’t sure he should have them back quite yet.

”You called him and asked him to come get them, by the way. You didn’t do nothin’.”

”That is a relief.”

“Anyway, I figure we kill two birds with one stone, and deal with all your texts on the same day. Today’s Friday. Your bar’s closed on Sundays, so...We’ll leave here around three. I promise I’ll take you somewhere nice. And I promise to tell you what I can about myself. I think I can trust you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I’ve been waiting for this chapter for a while.


	23. Children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im sorry about this chapter  
> The time spent the writing and everything else   
> My depression has been bad lately. Real bad, but I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things.   
> Some of this stuff was projecting  
> ESP Grillby’s second bit.   
> Sorry, on to the chapter now

Alphys digs her claws into the mud, ignoring the frenzied sloshing of the water as she scrabbles at the buried square form.

The top half of the case comes free with a wet sucking sound, the bottom following soon after. She douses the front of her lab coat for the third time as she hoists her prize out of the garbage water. Jackpot! 

It’s a new series, some magical girl anime she’s never watched before. Who knows how it ended up down there. She removes the disk from its case, checking for damage. It’s in remarkably good condition, considering where she found it. A bit sodden, but she has ways of fixing that.

Alphys hears someone wading through the water toward her and shoves the disk in a pocket, scheduling it a date with her rice stone later. She grimaces as the water soaks through her pocket and into her pants, and casually tosses the case back into the water. If it was in better condition, she’d have kept it, but the cover art was so badly water damaged it looked like a failed watercolour.

The familiar clang of armor has her panicking. If it’s anyone else in the Royal Guard, they’ve seen her in worse shape. But if it’s Undyne...

Alphys presses herself against the wall, almost hoping she becomes invisible.

Something drops a long, long way from the other half of Waterfall, splashing loudly into the water the next room over. Whatever it is, it missed the flowers by a mile.

The person in the armor speeds up their movement, barreling past Alphys with little regard for her existence. Alphys sees a flash of red down the back of the hulking figure.

Alphys considers leaving. After all, Undyne can handle herself.

But she can’t help her curiosity.

She’s not a very combative person, but dealing with Sans has given her an appreciation of bullet patterns and different fighting styles.

It’s been so long since she saw someone fight with a weapon, too...

She follows Undyne to the end of the dump, where a patch of golden flowers had sprung up not that long ago.

There is a tiny human there, frail and hollow in her dust-covered tutu.Her face is completely blank.

She looks nothing like any human Alphys had ever met, but she’d seen that look in some of Sans’ old patients.

She tilted her head. No emotion in her eyes but a vague recognition.

“You took my soul.”

Undyne is subtly unnerved, but her jovial persona is only a second late to the party.

“What? You’ve already been killed? What’s even the point, then?” She laughs, flipping her spear back and forth, “In that case, I’ll make it quick! How many RESETS you got in you, eh?”

She starts the fight, Alphys inserting herself as a spectator just before the colour drains from the world. Undyne doesn’t even notice her. That’s fine.

Undyne and that shell of a child become pale as ghosts as the background falls away. Alphys glances down at herself, as always unsure if she’s done it right. Her body is greyed out as if she’d been defeated.  Perfect. 

She turns her eyes back to the fight to come.

The human’s soul, naturally, does not appear as the bullet board snaps into place. Instead, she is simplified into a tiny, humanoid avatar of a ballerina for a millisecond before the board vanishes and is replaced with the combatant’s menus. Her dress is a light blue.

Undyne forms something round and small out of magic and tosses it to the shell. Alphys’ eyes narrow.

“I never fight someone who can’t defend themself.”

Kindness? Doesn’t seem like her deal, but hey. She’s got a soft side?

Undyne freezes the child in place with a flip of her spear and waits for her first attack.

The human throws the shield aside and shifts, thickening and widening her arms into something more mobile.

Another mage? This is going to be hard for Asgore to explain away.

Undyne just grins.

“Ah, kid, you shouldn’t have! I’ve never gotten to fight a mage before!”

The child says nothing, instead looking over Undyne’s shoulder. She tilts her head. Her menu is not hidden, as one would expect, only turned away. Alphys can see the little ballerina moving between invisible options, her dress now a soothing green. She regards Alphys silently before choosing something.

“My soul went with her. I’ll have to kill her too, then.”

Whoops!

Undyne almost turns her back on the kid, but only glances toward Alphys, emotionless behind her visor.

It’s enough time for the human to throw herself at Undyne, clawing at her face and working her fingers into Undyne’s helmet, tearing at the thing. 

Loosening it?

Undyne fights them off, but Alphys sees her helmet is a little skewed, and there are scratches in the metal. They’re tiny, and Undyne’s protected now, but it’s not nothing; especially when a single direct hit could kill her.

Alphys has seen this before, of course. An older tactic, but just as effective now as it was hundreds of years ago; after all, Undyne can’t free her hands to fix it.

But Alphys can. 

Is it unfair? Sure. 

But she’s got a turn in this battle too, even as she inserted herself as a spectator first. 

Alphys is shaky as she is compelled by the rules of combat to stand forward. As her body is washed in white and black.

She hasn’t had to participate in a fight since the war. She’s studied them at length, of course, but studying something and practicing it are very different.

“Alphys, what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m-“

“Back off!” 

Fine. If Undyne doesn’t want her help, Alphys won’t offer it. She goes grey again, compelled to step into the background.

Undyne looked back at the kid.

“Don’t even think about it! If you touch her, I’ll tear you apart!”

Alphys silently fumes. 

She lived through The War. The only war any monster ever speaks of; in hushed tones when veterans walk by, bitterly, with beer in hand at a local bar...over tea in a cosy little home. And here she is being treated like she’s useless. 

Sure, she’s a support character, but she’s just as important as a high-attack fighter.

Undyne nods at her, satisfied she’s safe, and selects the FIGHT option. 

The bullet board, ballerina in the middle, becomes visible again.

Undyne sends a few practice jabs at her. Slow moving, as if she’s warming up.

It wouldn’t surprise Alphys if she hadn’t had time to do her pre-fight stretches. Had she known about the human...

The human is quick to block. Alphys isn’t sure how fast Undyne usually is, but she’s gotta be either fast or tricky if she’s going to get the better of the human.

At least from back here, Alphys can better analyze her fighting tactics. 

“It’s almost a shame I have to kill you! You’re good!”

The human doesn’t dignify that with a response. She thinks on her menu for a while, selecting an invisible option with a joyless smile.

She holds out a hand, a music box appearing from her inventory. Pre-wound, it plays the moment it lands in her hand. A simple melody.

She drops the box in the water and does a few practice pirouettes.

Some kind of power-up? A stat booster?

At least Undyne’s picking up the pace a little, catching the human square in the chest after a particularly good turn.

The human, for her part, seems more interested in practicing ballet moves than actually fighting, spending her turn doing a series of rapid steps around the water. Somehow she manages to make it look graceful. 

Alphys has a bad feeling about the way this fight is going.

Undyne starts feinting, and Alphys wonders if she’d get along with Sans. Back when he still used his swords, feinting was his favourite strategy. He’d probably love to be able to spar with her.

The human does a series of short hops in place, lifting one leg and then the other with each hop.

Alphys has a very bad feeling about this fight. 

What colour was her SOUL again?

Blue. Aqua, as Sans insisted she refer to it. 

Patience.

What was she waiting for?  Is she powering up?

Bad news.

“U-Undyne, I know you don’t want my help, but-“

“Yeah. You’re right, I don’t.”

Alphys throws her hands up, exasperated already.

“Fine! What good is a support character when you could just stab her! It’s not like she’s obviously giving herself a bunch of buffs!”

“Wait...can you do something about that?”

“Yes! Obviously!”

“Oh. Well...go ahead, then.” Undyne says awkwardly.

Alphys almost wants to leave, but instead steps forward, letting her body go white again and automatically flicking her phone on and fiddling around with it.

The beginning of the Madoka Magica theme song blares out of her phone, causing the human to jump much less gracefully into the air.

She only ever made one music-based debuff in her time, so she isn’t even sure it worked.

The human closes her eyes, breathes in, and leaps forward. One leg points forward like a spear and Undyne’s so busy flexing-for whom, Alphys can’t help but wonder-she doesn’t even attempt to block the attack. Her helmet came clean off, the words “Grand Jetè” appearing in white cursive across the bullet board. The human landed on one leg, the other upraised at a ninety-degree angle.

She lowers her right leg and stomps, not out of anger but as if she recalled doing it before and was trying to remember why. After the splash of the water fades, Alphys thinks she hears something else sliding through the water.

“You took away my second action!”

Alphys lets out a long breath. So, it did work.

“Dang. Good work!”

A distant splash.

Undyne’s next turn is incredibly fast, incredibly complex, and Alphys is certain the human is slower now. Alphys chances darting forward and snatching Undyne’s helmet from the ground as she’s distracted. The human swings her foot down and makes contact with Alphys’ snout, but she manages to grab the helmet and run back. She takes very little damage and isn’t exactly sure why. She tries to get the helmet back on Undyne, but isn’t quite sure how it’s supposed to work.

The pixelated ballerina’s dress is back to the old blue on her turn but she doesn’t seem to care.

She’s bleeding badly but as she has no self-preservation instincts, it’s not surprising that she’s not even thinking of running away.

No self-preservation. No SOUL. No power.

The two of them might actually have a chance here.

The human’s distracted eyes swivelled toward Alphys.

Okay. Maybe not.

Instead of attacking Alphys, her eyes flash a light blue and Alphys feels something digging around in her mind.

A memory surfaces, an old one, and it drives Alphys to her knees.

She opens her eyes in a dark space, with a little boy standing in front of her.

Her son. Sans’ son. His skin is grey, his eyes are wide and white, but it’s him...isn’t it?

He speaks, and his voice is wrong but so, so familiar.

“You forgot me. Everyone forgot me.”

“Diego, cut it out.”

“That’s not my name!”

Alphys has never had to parent him before, and she thinks. After they had given him to her parents, she’d been his sister as long as he’d known her, so...what did they do?

And then she looks over him again. And she remembers what Sans told her.

Oh. Right. Illusions.

And she’s back on her feet in the dump, almost wishing she was still there. There’s something in the back of her mind telling her she’s forgotten something very important.

Undyne slams the human’s body into the water, and Alphys can clearly tell she’s dead. There’s blood running down Undyne’s face, much to Alphys’ surprise.

Undyne staggers and wheels around, eyes and feet wandering around the room.

Or...her eye.

-

Grillby steps off the Riverperson’s boat and thanks them for taking him to Hotland.

They hum.

“I foresee a coming Thursday. Thursdays are very good days.” They say, and for a second Grillby is sure he sees a smile in the depths of their hood.

“Thursdays are always coming.” He says, as if he doesn’t know better than to take it literally. The Riverperson laughs, a dry and jovial sound.

“You are more right than you know. I hope to see you again soon.”

They say, pushing their boat away from the shore.

“And I you. Take care.” He says softly, and looks forward. He passes the threshold to the next room and finds himself in the family village. Looking behind him, he sees the little river his father had routed into the place, just so his sons could visit without having to brave Waterfall. In front of him is the path that leads to his father’s house. It’s easily the largest in the area-only slightly smaller than the king’s house-but not as cozy-looking to most monsters. 

He always wondered why his father had gone with such a stereotypical gothic house. He might as well hang signs saying “Ancient demon lord lives here!” on the thing. 

The gargoyles on their pedestals flick their ears as he passes them by and turn to watch him ascend the stairs. The brass knockers gleam in his light, but he knows the door is open so he just pushes his way inside.

His father waits on the staircase, cane in hand.

“Have you been waiting long?” He signs.

“No, you’re just in time. Fuku is waiting to see you, but poor Heats is still distraught.”

“Still thinks it’s his fault?” 

Apollyon nods gravely.

“And...what about you?”

“I’ve a theory as to what happened to you, but let’s not discuss it now.”

He says, and gestures for Grillby to climb the stairs.

Once they are face-to-face, Apollyon pulls him into a tight hug.

“It’s so good to see you back on your feet...metaphorically speaking. Do you feel alright?”

“I feel fine. A bit confused, if I’m honest, but otherwise...”

“Yes, well... I will explain my theory when I have you sat down with Dantalion and Fuku.” He says, striding purposefully through the open double doors.

“Dantalion? What do they have to do with it?”

“They have decided to move to Snowdin.”

“I do not need someone to look after me.” He says, pausing. 

“They aren’t moving there to look after you. They’ve been planning this for a while, you know.”

He takes in a short breath, lets it out long and starts walking again.

“Yes. I know.”

“I think this village is getting too crowded for them. I’m not surprised, honestly. I imagine once we get back to the surface, half the village is going to move to Spain!”

Grillby chuckles.

“I have heard California is nice.” He says, as though he’d ever stray too far from his family.

“Not you too!” His father says, pushing open the door to the second floor balcony. Fuku was standing at the railing and staring out over the village.

“Hey dad.”

Apollyon shut the door behind Grillby and waved encouragingly from behind the glass.

Fuku laughed, looking back at her father.

“Despite what Papa might have said, I’m not angry.”

“He has said nothing about you.” He glances back at the door and is gratified that his father has gone to find Dantalion.

“Nobody else has told you what you said to them, right?”

He looks back to her, surprised she knows what he’s thinking.

“I mean, it’s an obvious thing. I mean, I’d be pretty curious if I lost a week of my life and people won’t tell me what I said or did. The reason nobody told you is probably because it doesn’t matter.”

He watched her face as she spoke and frowned. Dark blue streaks make their way up her face and snap out of existence in her luminous zone.

That isn’t quite the truth. Not quite a lie either, but she’s leaving something out.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“To be honest, it wasn’t as bad as everyone is acting like it is. You seemed convinced we knew things-like who Heats’ father was-and were keeping it from you.”

“Is that all?”

“You know, there were some insults, a lot of talk about how betrayed you felt. You know, the expected stuff, but honestly, you seemed too confused to make much of a point or explain your position.”

“Still, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened to me.”

“Papa has a theory.” She sighs.

“Dad, what do you remember?”

He chuckles and wracks his brain for any memory from the past week.

“I don’t even have a full list of all the people I insulted. I...think I opened my bar one night, but I’m not sure about all the others.”

“No, I mean...your whole life.”

“Oh. I see. I suppose my father told you about my amnesia?”

She just waits for his answer.

“I remember my life before earth. Not that most of it was interesting. The war, falling...and some of my childhood. Things get fuzzy from fifteen until I met your mother. And I can’t remember the first few years after I left her.”

“Very little, then? Not surprising, you don’t even remember how many years it’s been since...that whole thing.”

“What do you mean? It’s been seven years! I remember that!”

“It’s been eight years.”

He opens his mouth and closes it again.

“I...haven’t been paying attention, I suppose. I mean, I’ve forgotten a lot of my life.”

“It’s fine. That’s not your fault.”

“Has my father told you his ‘theory’? About my memory?”

“Well...something you probably don’t remember from your childhood is that you apparently did something similar when you were around seven.” 

Apollyon opened the door to the patio, ducking a little to get his head in. He looks anxious.

“Dantalion is in the parlour.” He says, too quickly.

Was he listening to us talk? How long has he been there?

“I did this before?”

Apollyon sighs, head and shoulders drooping.

“Fuku, I was going to tell him myself!”

“And when were you planning to?” She asks, crossing her arms.

“Literally right now?”

“Alright. Then why does it matter that I started you off?”

He awkwardly glances between them, then gives up.

“Let’s go meet Dante. I’ll tell you on the way.”

Grillby stood and walked after his father, worried he’d miss something if he didn’t move quick enough.

“So yes, when you were nine, a memory file got misplaced-I believe it was after you fell into that pond, you forgot the name of your favourite book-and every time someone asked about it, it was like two things were running at the same time that shouldn’t have been.”

“Did I ever get that file back?”

“We took you a specialist and got it sorted out, but...right now, you’re missing so many memory files and there’s no way to know where they are. We got lucky before; the file was at the bottom of the pond, we retrieved it, and once you had it back, you were fine.”

“Why did you not tell me before now? At least about memory files?”

“I have. Several times. But you’ve always failed to find the files. It just made you feel worse, and as long as nobody was able to remind you of things, you’d be fine. And well...nobody knows what you’ve forgotten.”

“Except Heats?”

More blue streaks on Fuku’s face. What does she know?

Apollyon is being truthful at least, no tightness to his expression. He just looks tired.

“Yes, it seems so. And about Heats...”

“Is something wrong?” Grillby asks, his flame a wild orange.

“Are you taking him back to your home?”

“If you think I can-“

“Dad, if you don’t want to-“

“I do! He already feels like this is his fault, I don’t want him thinking I don’t want him, I just...”

Apollyon nods decisively, moving around chairs in the dining room without any attention paid to them.

“I’m glad you said it. I was worried about the same thing myself. He’s been a delight to have, of course, but...”

“I’m his father. Being delighted by him is my job.”  Even if I have to prove it to everyone in my own family.

Fuku chuckles.

“I hope you never talk about me that way!”

“Hate to break it to you, but he never shuts up about you. He’s so proud of this family’s only doctor...future doctor.”

“Daaad, that was supposed to be a surprise!”

“I was just too excited to keep it to myself!” He says, hugging her. She grins and pushes him away.

“Alright, alright, calm down.”

Apollyon opens the door to the parlour with a little smile. Grillby isn’t very familiar with this cousin, so he waits for their lead.

Dantalion stands and removes their mask, bowing slightly. Grillby responds the same way. 

They straighten and Dantalion replaces their mask. Their arms disappear back into their bright orange poncho.

“You have a lovely smile, cousin! I so love to see people smile in our dreary world!”

-

Grillby hates his closet. Before he’d started looking through it for something date-appropriate, he’d had no feelings about it. 

But when he opened the door and saw what was inside, he was reminded why he kept the door closed.

It’s a tidal wave of bad memories-his wedding dress, the skirt he was wearing when Fuku was conceived, the flats he’d nearly lost in the hospital, the clothes she’d bought that he never would have worn by choice-and a deep sadness. 

He ran a finger over the hem of a shirt, sure it wasn’t tainted, and wished he’d be able to wear these things in public again. Then, for the hell of it, he’d tried something on. 

He stands in front of a mirror now, regretting his choice. 

A long skirt, high-waisted, flowing and white. A white blouse with a tiny embroidered flower over where a human’s heart would be and lacy trim. A sunhat with a black ribbon, not that he’d ever need such a thing down here.

The perfect picture of a modest meek, poised and graceful. Still, he knows he can’t keep it on. And he certainly couldn’t wear it out of the house. 

“You look nice in that.”

Fuku says, catching a glimpse of him as she passes his room and pausing. They’ve only been back home an hour, but she’d come to check on him three times. At least it was less than his cousin’s five, but it was a little excessive.

“I am still fine, my dear.”

“I was just passing by! In an unsuspicious way!” She said, suspiciously.

“Anyways, um...you having trouble picking clothes for tomorrow? That outfit not doing it?”

He shakes his head, looking back at the mirror.

He is unsure how to voice his concerns. His problem isn’t that he doesn’t look good in it. It is the fact that he does.

“...do I look like a man in this?”

“Yeah. A really pretty man.”

“I...don’t want him to get the wrong idea, you know?” And Heats had never seen him this way.

“C’mon, dad. He obviously knows about your whole...situation-“

“My ‘situation?’ Grillby asks, grinning at her.

“Listen...he won’t be confused by your clothes. I  assume  he’s not an idiot and if you needed to, you would have already corrected him.”

“...are you sure?”

She sighs.

“Yeah, dad. But, if it’d make you feel more comfortable, we can go out somewhere and get you new clothes.”

“I...I like these clothes, I just...” He straightens his hat, “If you are certain he will be okay with-“

“Dad. He already loves you. Anything that leaves your mouth is gold to him.”

He looks himself over again and can’t help but smile.


	24. Another World

Frisk sits between Asnoch and Ruth for the third time. Of course, there would be no more violence between the pair of them. There hadn't even been any on the first night, unlike every other time they met up. Frisk assumed some form of deja vu had kept them calm.

They’re steadfastly refusing to look at each other, taking in the walls, the floor, the furniture of Frisk’s humble little home. Frisk stands to make tea.

“The worst part,” Ruth is saying, “Is that I never even stopped to think about it. I just hated you, and I just hated your people. I heard rumours and stories and I just...believed everything I was told.” Frisk sets a scavenged kettle over a fire and measures out tea leaves. They’ve been brewing their own tea for years, using golden flowers to add flavour.

“I understand. I don’t blame humans. Not entirely. Humans, I know, are easily influenced.”

“Influenced by what?” Ruth asks, narrowing her eyes at him.

He looks at Frisk for a long moment.

“I...don’t know anymore.”

They smile as they pour three cups of tea.  Perfect.

They take a sip and bite back a sigh. Their homemade tea is not as strong as the boxed stuff underground. They can’t wait until they can get their hands on it again.

“The truth is, this is how humans have always been. We don’t need any outside influence, even when we know the people we’re up against.”

Asnoch lays a massive hand on her knee. Frisk doles honey into Asnoch’s cup and their own, awkwardly balancing all three on the way back to the table.

“I know. But there is no going back on what has already happened. We now have to move forward.”

They set the cups down a little too hard while trying not to drop them and flinch, but nobody pays them any attention.

“There are only two ways this can end, Noch. There’s a fifty percent chance this will go wrong.”

Ruth says quietly.

Frisk taps the table for their attention.

“There is only one way forward. He can’t hide forever.”

“He can try.” Asnoch says hopefully.

Ruth shakes her head.

“Listen, kid, I know you’ve been through a lot but you have no idea what might happen if other humans find out about him. You have not seen the worst of us.”

They’d heard her say this so many times, but it always makes them angry.

“I know more than you think. I have seen more violence, more cruelty in my years than you could possibly know.”

Their hands shake as they sign, desperately tamping down the magic gathering with each movement of their hands.

She’s quiet for a moment.

“How can you be so sure that this is going to end well?”

They’ve never managed to convince her with just words, and so they choose them carelessly.

“Because I know how it ends already.”

“And...it ends well?” Asnoch asks, buying every word that leaves their hands.

“For most people.” They sign, thinking again of the smell of Sans’ dust.

Ruth shakes her head.

“I don’t know how you can say that so confidently.”

“I believe you.”

Ruth looks at him for a very long time before she runs a hand over her face.

“Okay. I’ll help.”

-

Batsy Hart’s Practical Guide To Soulmates

Why do soulmates happen? It’s a question as old as soulmates themselves, and for a long time, there was no way to know.

Many cultures came up with their own way to explain them; most were romantic, or based on how well the pair would breed.

Some more interesting ideas; sirens believed that a soulmate bond happened when two people were made to fight together. It was hypothesized by Head Merrowe of the White Pearl school that “A soulmate’s bond is the only way to get a coward into battle. Who would desert when their soulmate will confront them later?”

Demons once believed that bonds were one-way siphons, a way for one demon to steal another’s strength. Soulmate bonds were seen as the worst and were operated on for centuries until Apollyon Morningstar-the patriarch of one of the most influential demonic families-stood against the separation of pairs.

Celestials had the idea that people’s souls were created halved. Soulmates were your other half, and that pairs are only at their full potential when they are together. While not completely accurate, it’s actually close to the truth.

It wasn’t until fifty years ago, when Dr. Farha Abdul began working with a bond reader-Lilith Flarefoot-and a Time’s Eye by the name of 20/30 that we found out why these bonds are created.

Every species has a power threshold; a limit to how strong theirSOUL is allowed to be. This keeps our world in balance, ensuring that everything stays in its place and that the universe doesn’t contort itself to the whims of one rogue entity. 

It also orders creatures into a hierarchy of power, which allows the natural world to function predictably. A common worm cannot overpower a rhinoceros, for example; it’s simply impossible. This is easy to keep up with mortal, nonmagical creatures. 

Things get trickier when dealing with magical creatures, especially immortal or eldritch creatures-though it’s been known to happen with completely average monsterstoo-because they are more likely to be capable of breeding with other powerful species and creating a hybrid of the best traits of each.

These hybrids, if their SOULS are left intact, could become gods. To avoid this, the SOUL is split in two and divided into two developing bodies somewhere in the universe. This is often why monsters in pairs are stronger than their unpaired peers.

Bonds usually make themselves known when the two halves are close, or if the bond gets impatient.

You see, unlike most bonds, this one acts like the connection between body and SOUL. If the two halves are separated too long, it will spur them forward. The thing you once were wants to be whole again.

-

A knock comes at three o'clock exactly. Then, Sans' voice.

"Knock knock."

Grillby smiles.

"The door is unlocked."

"C'mon! Play along for once!"

A smile flashes across his face.  I'll be nice this time.

"Who is there?"

"Snow."

Naturally.

"Snow who?"

"Snow use askin' when you can just open the door."

He grins, then takes a second to let the greens in his flame fade, and fights down his smile. He opens the door.

"How long did it take you to come up with that one?"

Sans takes a second to respond, his eyelights trailing lazily down Grillby's ensemble. He'd changed his embroidered shirt to a light brown button-up, and gone for a high-waisted skirt instead.

"All day. You look good."

"So do you." He said, switching to sign language.

Sans had changed his old coat and athletic shorts-an odd choice for a man who never does anything-for a dark blue cardigan with a wide collar and a pair of jeans. 

He’d seen Sans in his usual shirtless attire only an hour before-he’d been eating a hot cat-and Grillby worried he’d show up dressed like that. Papyrus was talking his ear off, as the organics would say, so Grillby hadn’t had to decide if he was going to warn Sans about it.

Grillby picks up his umbrella-even though it isn't snowing-as he leaves his house. He's already dropped hydrophobia pills into his flats and hopes they can just go to the Riverperson's room right away. At least, he's sure Sans wouldn't make plans in Waterfall.

"Where are we going?"

Sans speaks as he walks, Grillby having to moderate his walk cycle to stop from automatically outpacing him.

"There's a new restaurant open in the capital-you know the last Winter street?"

He nods, though in the back of his mind he’s wondering if Sans just eats for fun. He can’t imagine Sans needs to eat again this soon. Had he forgotten about their date?

He shakes his head, physically and mentally refuting the idea.

"It's there; they still haven't changed the name. I've been a couple times, this week and last week. And after...a little surprise."

"Winter Street no longer snows, right?"

"Yeah, I guess whatever was causing the weather moved on half a year ago? It was in the news then, at least, that all the snow melted overnight.”

“That is good.”

Sans leads Grillby toward the blizzard, stopping him in his tracks.

Sans smiles back at him.

“I know a shortcut. You won’t have to worry about the snow.“

“Yes, but I will still need to-I don’t want you to have to-“

“It’s not a shortcut in the traditional sense. I promise, you won’t see a single snowflake on our way there.”

Grillby sighs.

“I will hold you to that promise.”

Sans grins at him and walks backward to the transition screen.

Everything goes black, and when he can see again, he doesn’t recognize where he is. 

They’re standing on a cobblestone road, still the pale blue of Winter Street. Quaint little shops line the street, cute old-fashioned lanterns hanging from each building.

Sans scrutinizes his face as he fights to maintain a bored expression. 

“So, not much of a shortcut, then.”

Sans grins.

“You’re impressed, I can tell.” He says, gesturing for Grillby to follow him to a little bistro called Apéritif. 

“Perish the thought.”

“Heh. I think I already did, Sunshine.” He says, winking cheerily.

He stands on his toes to open the door for Grillby.

How cute.

“ Grazie . ”  He says, holding back on taking the door from Sans, who is far too short for the job he’s given himself.

Grillby sits, Sans steering him toward a table with a padded chair he can actually sit on and see over the table. 

Sans takes his order and walks to the cash.

The cashier nearly backs away from Sans when they get a good look, but force themself to smile and serve him. He seems unfazed, acting as if they aren’t the most conspicuous couple in the Underground.

Grillby squints at the other customers-an old Lapine, a couple of triangular red Drakin, a pink slime who blubs quietly into their cellphone.

Another celestial, one wearing an Aperatif uniform, notices him while cleaning one of the tables and automatically straightens.

They come over and take Grillby’s hands. The pair exchange no words, but he knows what is wanted from him. Grillby dips his head and presses his mouth against their hands, glancing awkwardly at Sans, who is heading back to their table.

He looks entirely uninterested in the process, as if he’s seen this a few thousand times. 

The other celestial returns the favour, then walks off. Sans waits for them to leave before sitting across from him and sliding the bag over. He pulls a pad of paper out of his pocket and sets it down on the table.

“Do you know that guy?”

“My apologies, we were just-“

“Don’t worry, I know.” He says, waving his hand dismissively.

“Oh, right. I didn’t even think about it, but I suppose it’s obvious to you what I am?” 

He nods.

“That’s a relief, if anything.” He admits with a chuckle.

The worker behind the register-an imp, he thinks-sees him signing and shoots a look at the other celestial. She lets herself out from behind the cash and sidles up to their table, keeping her voice low.

“I see that you’ve chosen to sit near the street. I should warn you, in a few minutes, Winter street will become rather busy and noisy.” She gestures widely but carefully, giving his flames a huge berth.

How rude! As if I would catch her on fire!

Sans’ sockets narrow and he rolls his hand around in a “keep going” sort of motion.

She looks at Grillby and bounces on her hooves.

“If your-“ 

“I’m not his.” He signed, ignoring the rest of the server’s words and anything Sans might have to say.

“I-I see.If...you...are of a particularly delicate temperament-“

“He isn’t.” Sans interrupts.

“If you’re sure your...the meek will not become hysterical-“ she seems genuinely put off by Grillby responding to her in his own words. 

The other celestial catches his eye and turns blue in solidarity.

Sans glares at the server and says “We’re fine.” 

He stared at her until she left, glancing dubiously back at them. Sans crosses something off of the paper.

“What is that?” Grillby glances at it, sees a list of restaurant names, and frowns when he sees that “Aperitif” has been crossed off.

Places he’s taken dates?

“Oh, I just like to keep tabs on places where servers act like that. And, uh, never come back to them.”

“Oh.” He says, jealousy dripping from his movements.

How many meek lovers has he had before me?

“You okay? We can go somewhere else. There’s this great place down the street-“

“I am fine.” He says, and smiles fakely.

Sans is clearly unconvinced, but he drops the subject. He pulls a croissant out of the little paper bag and begins picking it apart.

“Didn’t you eat less than an our ago?”

“An hour and fifteen minutes ago. I gotta keep a high buffer on my HP if we’re going to have any sort of serious conversation.”

“Why? I certainly can’t reject you for who you are; I will love you eventually no matter what you say.”

“But you don’t have to be happy about it. And until I’m loved, you absolutely can reject me. I’m a bit surprised you haven’t already. Usually things don’t get this far.”

“But, consider the alternative; I might accidentally find things out about you and keep them to myself, never giving you a chance to explain, and spend the rest of our days terrified you’re some sort of parasite who’s stolen my real soulmate’s body. For example.”

“Just a random, oddly specific example, eh?”

"So...?"

"We can talk about that after we eat, okay? Not in public. There’s a lot of stuff I have to keep to myself for safety reasons.“

“That’s understandable.” He opens a hole in his face, slipping a thin sliver of coated pine wood into the opening.

Sans took in a deep breath, trying to subtly breathe in the woodsmoke he exhaled.

“Sorry.” He says, seeming to realize he’s been caught.

“No, don’t be. Woodsmoke is one of the best things to come from my new sense of smell.”

“This your first time having a core with a sense of smell?” He asks, eyeridges raising.

“No, but it’s still new to me. It might take a decade or more for me to be used to it; you know how it is for us immortals.”

“Oh, yeah, duh. How long have you had it?”

“Hmm...about a year?”

“Man, to think I’ve been taking it for granted for forty years...”

“You’re forty?”

“Thirty-nine. I know, I know, I don’t look a day over twenty.” He says with a wink.

“Hmm...you know, I don’t recall saying that...” He says, pretending to think on it.

“Harsh!” He said, his grin tugging incomprehensibly.

Did I actually offend him?

He winks again.

“Well, what did I expect? My back goes out more than I do.”

“You’re going to have to do much better than that, I’m afraid.” He says, feigning a yawn.

Sans’ eyes light up at the challenging note in his voice, his smile turning Cheshire-like.

“Don’t give me any ideas.”

...

“So, three weeks later, Papyrus storms downstairs, absolutely silently grabs the ladder-“

Grillby lets out a short bark of laughter, pulling his hand out of Sans’ to cover his mouth, leaning back against the bench.

“-And for the next five minutes, I hear things dropping on the floor and Papyrus is shouting things like “Fiddlesticks! He finally finishes setting all his action figures and pencils back where he wants them, and he comes back downstairs and says-heh-he says ‘Sans! Someone broke into our house last night and taped all my action figures to the ceiling!’”

Both of them break down laughing, the passerby on Winter Street briefly glancing at the couple and then away very quickly.

Grillby scoots a little closer, not entirely on purpose, still laughing quietly.

Sans’ eyelights flick up to his face. There’s a kind of tension, the two of them making eye contact for a few long seconds. They break it, but Grillby’s mind wanders to the thoughts they were both entertaining. It was a silly thing to want, for two beings without lips. 

Though, now that he thinks of it, he had already formed them for something much less exciting today.

Then there came the question of sensation; would it even feel right? He’d never even thought to try kissing a skeleton before.

Would it even be right? Would it be leading him on, since he hasn’t fallen in love yet?

Sans stands and cracks his back.

“Do, you remember I told you I had a surprise for you? You ready to head there?”

Grillby nods and stands as well.

“Come with me.” He says, jerking his head for Grillby to follow. He sets his sights on a street corner that led to a dead end that Grillby nervously followed him down.

Things were about to get more dangerous, he realized. It was time for a bit of mild interrogation.

As the black screen raised, Grillby found himself standing in a wide open space-at least by the Underground’s standards- with a relatively high ceiling. And in front of them...a sunspot. An empty sunspot, the light climbing precariously down onto a patch of soft grass, dotted with odd little flowers he didn’t recognize.

“They haven’t added this to the list of sunspots yet, so I thought I’d take you here before it got crowded. We can talk about more private stuff here.”

Grillby stands under it; there are so few of them, even less since the Ruins were sealed. He hasn’t sunned himself in about a year.

“How did you find it?” He asks, getting the urge to change forms and stretch out under the sun.

“I was wandering between sunspots and ended up getting a bit...lost.”

“Why didn’t you just stay at one?” He asks, lying on his back, uncaring how dirty his clothes will get and examines the closest flower. They looked like miniature dahlias; Tiny and black, with short, pointy petals in round clusters. 

“People tend to stare or leave places when I’m around. I usually avoid ‘em, but I just...really needed it that day. You can stretch out if you want.”

“No, I won’t. You need the sun too. What, do you smell or something? Why would people avoid you?”

Sans sits beside him, his eyesockets crinkling with affection before he realizes what Grillby asked.

“Skeletons-especially human ones-aren’t supposed to look like this. My birth defects should have killed me before I’d even left the incubator and anyone who’s seen more than one human skeleton generally knows that.”

“I didn’t know that.” He says defensively.

“Well, I’m sure nothing seems normal about Papyrus and me. Skeletons are supposed to look like him, anyway. The proportions, the skull shape, the, uh...amount of ribs and vertebrae...” He says, his voice growing more and more uncomfortable as he speaks.

"But you aren't human. I already know that."

"My body is."

"Did your host die?” He asks, and feels like a dick doing so. He knows how rough that can be from his father, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.

"Never had one."

Grillby lays still for a second, wanting to let it go, but sits up to look at him. He can't keep the black out of his flame.

"That makes no sense, Sans."

"That's what everyone says. But, I'm not like other symbiotes. Although, without a host...do I even count?" He's lost in thought for a few seconds before he shakes his head.

"It doesn't matter. I’ve always been alone in this body.”

“How?”

“This body was made for me. Grown in a lab and everything.”

“And what about you? I’ve barely even seen the real you. What...are you?” Gods, he’s being rude today.

“This is gonna be frustrating, but I don’t know what I am.”

“Well, what are your parents?”

“Never met my birth parents.”

“Did...no, you’re older than Papyrus, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” his mouth tugs into a grimace, “And I’m...adopted...? Anyway?” He says, his face screwed up as he does some mental gymnastics.

“Well, didn’t your adoptive parents try and figure out where you came from?”

Sans blows a breath through his teeth.

“It’s not...lemme explain, because nothing’s ever that simple with me. I know where I came from, physically. So did my dad, and the guy before him. I’m...jesus, this is going to sound nuts.” He trails off and thinks about it for a minute.

“Sans?”

“Sorry, it’s just...this never gets easier. Okay. There’s another world underneath this one. Not like...Hell, but something under that? I’m not really sure how best to explain it. I don’t know that much about it, honestly. Most of the discoveries my father made about it were destroyed during an...incident when I was twelve.”

What kind of conspiracy theory is Sans about to lay down?

“The incident that made you break your MERCY button?” 

He sighs.

“Yeah, that’s the one. The way my dad explained it was that if you turned this world on its back, you would be able to see that world. Because of that, we ust called it the Underside. That other world is a world of darkness, for the most part, just like this is a world of light. I was born? Created? Honestly, I can’t say... I was...whatever in that world. I have no idea what I am.”

That’s true. Difficult to swallow, but undeniable fact.

“I must admit that I’m not sure about this whole ‘underside of our world’ thing. It’s...you have to understand, I’m a rather simple man and you are the only person in the world who has ever even suggested something like this to me.”

“I know. It’s kind of a high-concept thing; I recognize that. Honestly, I wish I had more answers for you.”

Sans looks upward, his skull turning ghostly in the light.

“Can I see you?”

“I don’t know, can you? That’s sort of an existential question isn’t it?”

Grillby sits up to glare at him.

“I meant the real you. Outside of your body.”

“Shoulda seen that coming, I guess.I’ll warn you though, it’s kinda unpleasant to watch me leave it. If you wanna turn away or whatever, go ahead.”

“I’ll watch. If it frightens me, I’ll never have to see it again.”

“Okay. Here I go.”

Sans lays his body flat under the sun.

“Why are you doing that?”

“If my body falls and dusts, I will die. I have to be connected to something in this world to stay alive.”

If Grillby had eyes, he’d roll them.

“Yes, I know. I was raised by demons. I mean, why are you laying under the sun? If you came from the world of darkness, wouldn’t it hurt you?”

“...No? Does being in the dark hurt you?”

Fair.

He watches the light fade from Sans’ eyes and shivers a little.

His jaw lets out a little ‘pop’ and goes slack. 

A black, viscous liquid pours out of his mouth, the sunlight filling it with the occasional white highlight. It (he?) slithers out of his skull and splats against the grass.

He takes a few seconds to collect all of himself, then stretches his body up into a long shape, roughly five feet long, with a small oval for a head. His body becomes more defined, growing horned ridges and light blue eyes. The oval splits, revealing pure white fangs in a blue mouth.

His body builds again, seemingly halfway through his first shape. The horned ridges become huge sockets, the eyes migrating to the front of the face, the mouth growing rounded and above a barely-defines chin. The long, sinuous body grows limbs with wicked talons and flat, clawed feet. A tail begins to form, but Sans thinks better of it. Finally, the whole thing compresses back to Sans’ regular height.

When Sans looks at Grilllby, he’s grinning ear to ear.

“Fascinating.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT’S BEEN  
> EIGHTEEN YEARS  
> seriously though, I’m really sorry for my long absence! I’ve been kinda having financial trouble, so I’ve been focusing on taking extra hours and trying to make stuff to sell.  
> But now I’m back at it. Rejoice  
> (and donate to my ko-fi (jk))  
> Changed this back because this is not connected in any way to Deltarune


	25. Private Investigations

It's too goddamn cold in Snowdin, and Alphys' heavy parka isn’t doing much to keep her body warm. Her limbs are stiff as she approaches her parents' home. She knocks on the door.

"Ahh...That's our daughter's knock."

Her father opens the door and is already retreating back into the house before she even begins to move.

"Come on, don't let too much of the cold air in."

Diego climbs off his enclosed chair, tail swaying as he attempts to stay standing.

"What are you doing here, sis? Don't you have nerd stuff to be doing?"

She sticks her tongue out at him and hugs her open-armed mother.

"I wish you'd called ahead! If I'd known you were coming, I would have made something a little more interesting for dinner..."

Smells like dragonfly stew. She takes in a deep whiff-was there a hint of mouse underneath?- and decided not to mention that it’s better than anything she’s eaten in months. Or that she had an appointment looking after Undyne’s eye earlier and hadn’t been able to eat after-She’s going to have to remove what little there was left of it-and so anything would be fine.

Or that most mornings, she wakes up from terrible nightmares of a grey girl who looks so much like her brother, a girl that calls her “Mom” and asks why she forgot her.

She doesn’t say it, but she hadn’t called ahead for exactly that reason. After what’s been going on recently, she needs something simple. 

"It's fine, mom. Besides, you know I love dragonflies!”

“Yes, I know, dear. We used to fear that you’d sprout wings one day!”

“Oh please, I haven’t gone feral in at least a month.” 

Another good thing about being back home was that she could pull out jokes like that and have people laugh. Drakin humour doesn’t really reach other monsters.

They all snort as her mother begins ladling the stew into Diego’s bowl. She watches him eat out of the corner of her eye, taking the bowl up with his feet.

He’s much more flexible than either her or his father; or at least than Sans’ skeletal body. He must have gotten his flexibility from Sans’ real body, because Alphys couldn’t do that kind of thing.

He’s why she’s here, but now isn’t the time to ask him questions.

The meal is so normal it’s surreal.

“How is your work going?”

“Not well. Honestly, nothing’s happening with my patients. I’ve treated them and I’m just...waiting.”

Her father fiddled with his glasses uncomfortably.

“I may not be a scientist, but I know you’ve done everything you can, dear. If you can’t do it, then bringing monsters back from falling simply isn’t possible.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“You’re the smartest person I know, sis. I know those people are gonna wake up soon.”

She’s quiet.

“I’ll ask you a less awkward question, then!” Her mother says with a little giggle, “Are you seeing anyone?”

“Ew.” Diego says, sticking his tongue out at her.

“No, mom. Still single.”

“Oh, but someone’s got your attention, I can tell.” Her parents exchange winks.

“Is it Sans again?” 

She groans, running a hand down her face.

“We’ve always just been friends, mom.”

She glances at Diego and then back at Alphys, as if to say “Are you sure?”

“So you say.”

She’s never been convinced of that, Alphys knows, but it’s the truth. Sans had come to the conclusion he was gay pretty early into their time together. They’d agreed to have Diego together to keep Sans aging, but he made his lack of attraction to her very clear. 

“Well, if it isn’t Sans...”

“It’s Undyne.” She says, and her mother shakes her head.

“You’re no fun, Al! You didn’t even let me guess!”

“You should’ve raised me better.” Alphys said, her eyes twinkling mischievously.

“We tried our best. Where did we go wrong?” Her father joked.

The conversation went quiet until they’d finished eating-not awkward, just quiet-and once they were done cleaning up, Alphys asked her parents to vacate the room.

“Oh, sure, honey. Is this...about his father?”

Of course, they knew Sans was dying. It would have made sense to ask, if Diego knew Sans was his father. But he doesn’t.

“No. He doesn’t know about Sans, and I’m not going to tell him.”

“If you think that’s what’s best...”

“I do. No, Sans is still fine, I just wanted to ask him about something I saw recently.”

Her parents seemed unsure, but she ushered them out as subtly as possible.

Diego was sitting in front of the TV. Some silly action movie was playing. A drakin and an Aaron are caught up in a fight, a dozen bullets flying around them in an impressive show of sparks.

As she approaches, she realizes Diego isn’t really paying attention to it. He holds a pencil in one foot, stabilizes himself with the other one. There’s blank paper on the table, an eraser nearby. Potential in its purest form.

He sketches out the drakin’s head, stopping to look at the TV occasionally.

“I didn’t know you drew.”

Diego jerks, surprised, and drops his pencil.

“You scared the crap out of me!” He glances down at it the pencil and grabs at it, sighing.

“Yeah. I’ve started drawing recently. It’s not very good yet, but...yeah.”

“That’s cool.” She watches him sketch. He’s actually pretty good, not that she’d ever admit it. 

She huffs as the drakin on-screen goes feral, and Diego smiles up at her.

“I’ve only seen that happen once, but it’s in every action movie.” She says, by way of apology.

“Really? You’ve seen it?”

“Yeah. Back when we lived with the rest of the Molten River, we got into a bit of...conflict with another reclusive people. Don’t remember where they lived, but the head went feral once a couple thousand of these little...dogs? Cats? Invaded the village. Never fought, just annoyed us.”

“Wow! I didn’t know he did that.”

“Yeah. I kinda wish I still lived there. He was a cool guy.”

“I mean, I’m not a drakin anyway.”

He says it casually, which is a little surprising, but it’s not like he wouldn’t have noticed he wasn’t like the rest of the family.

“Did you think I didn’t know?” She stares at him, waiting for the rest of his sentence, but he doesn’t.

“I don’t know. You’re half drakin, at least, so I thought maybe you’d just think... you know.”

“Yeah. I know.” They sit in silence for a long time.

“Have you ever seen a monster like you anywhere else?” She asks, thinking of that little grey child she had seen in her visions.

He makes another few, quick strokes with the pencil and she thinks he isn’t going to answer her.

He taps the pencil against the paper and takes in a conspicuous breath.

“No.”

Just like his father.

-

Grillby has...interests. Fascinations, that he long learned would make others’ eyes glaze over. Would make folks glance at wristwatches and hurry off to urgent appointments they never made. He got used to ignoring those interests, but seeing Sans’ dark, sinuous body shift and reformulate Grillby had felt those passions stir in a way he hadn’t felt in years. He’d never seen anything like him before.

Grillby had read at least two cryptozoological tomes cover to cover after coming home, taking notes until late into the night. Looking for even the slightest lead on what Sans might be.

He hadn’t read anything in several months. It was nice.

Fuku had come home an hour later than he had and asked him what he was doing, but she got bored halfway through his explanation.

He hadn’t found much that would hold water, but he wasn’t even halfway through his own books, and there were several he had donated to a library in the capital, with his ex-wife’s help. They’re reference-only because of their rarity, but that’s fine. He is taking extensive notes anyway.

...

The clerk at New Home’s nonfiction reference library gives him a strange look as he passes over the list of books he needs. He’d gotten her help with the online catalog and found several books he’s never heard of on the subject to add to his already ridiculous bibliography.

Still, he’s excited. He’d been looking for James P. Blatt’s  A Grimoire For The Identification And Classification Of Cryptozoological Creatures, 201ii,  but some kind monster had donated the 201IX version, bless their SOUL.

There had been only that one published since 201iii one, since there had been less and less diversity in species’ children every year. He wasn’t sure, but he was suspecting so few people bothered to go elsewhere in the Underground that most towns were unintentionally segregated.

As he researched, he called Sans over and over, probably to an annoying degree.

He takes his calls out outside and asks dozens of questions each time.

“Can you change your colouring?”

“Nope.”

“Do you have to live around the SOUL?”

“I tend to stay in the skull, I’m less visible there.”

“Has a doctor ever catalogued your organs?”

“What an ominous question, uh, no?”

“Can you change your physical makeup?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you always goo?”

“No, it just takes a bit of effort to be a solid.” He scratched out “slime” and tapped his pencil against the paper.

“Can you be a gas?”

“Uh...lemme check...uhh...”

The phone dropped to the floor, and was then picked up again. He tried not to laugh.

“Yes, I can be a gas. How have I never tried that before?”

“No clue. Do you only have two forms, or can you do whatever you want?”

“I can do whatever. If I want my physical form to be bigger, I’d have to be healthier. But right now, I can only be a little bigger than my skeleton.” Definitely not some sort of changeling, they had a limit to their mass.

“What’s the biggest you’ve gotten?”

“Fifteen feet. I never tried any bigger, because fifteen feet seemed to freak people out enough.” Sans seems uncomfortable with being grilled, so he decides to end the call after one more question.

“Are you free on Monday? I’m going to be taking the day off.”

Sans laughed.

“I’m always ‘free’ when it comes to you, sunshine.”

-

Monster Cultures Around the World by Sigmet of the Thunder Wing People

Demon culture is difficult for most people, monster and human alike, to understand. What most people have trouble grasping is how deeplypower is entrenched in demon culture. 

As a matter of fact, whereas most species have male/female/neutral pronouns with several other possible pronouns, demon pronouns are perfectly binary and based entirely on your lifestyle. 

Demons will rarely refer to themselves as “male” “female” or as any sort of nonbinary, unless they are hiding themselves from those around them. The only gendered words that are commonly used in demon families are used to refer to the head of the family, “patriarch”, “matriarch” and “overarch”.

Demons will instead refer to themselves as “meek” or “driven”, which is an easy to understand binary, but I will explain it anyways.

Driven run every aspect of demon life. They are allowed to have any job they want, marry whoever they want, and are expected to be ambitious, brave, everything you would associate stereotypically withdemonkind.

Meek were, until about three decades ago, much more legally regulated than driven. Now they are only held to societal standards; they have all the legal rights as driven, though most are pressured family into restrictive roles. 

Meek are expected by society to be quiet, timid and above all obedient to driven. They rarely expect to be allowed to choose their partners or hold jobs, and are typically considered weak. Most meek are selectively mute or generally told not to speak without a guardian’s permission.

Until the legal battles the Morningstar family fought three decades ago, meek were property and driven used them as status symbols. Three decades ago, things began to change for them.

This change was championed by Apollyon-the patriarch of the Morningstar family-a driven who took in abused and abandoned meek by the dozens, on behalf of his meek children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Hi! Been a bit, eh?   
> This month has been super busy for me, partially because I spent a week and a half doing nothing but cross stitching a bookmark for my dads birthday, partially because of artfight, and partially because of a prompt for a group on da....and in the middle of all this, my rsi and other medical issues have been flaring up. Hopefully I’ll be able to be more consistent this month, but I’m saving up for a bunch of braces or elastic bandages for my medical stuff, so I might be working more often....  
> That all aside, I’m very sorry about the wait  
> I hope you like this chapter anyway


	26. Things We Know

Alphys asked around the Underground, trying to figure out where her brother likes to play, who he spends time with, what he likes to do in his spare time. 

She’s nervous about her plan, but she needs to know what he knows. And it really wouldn’t hurt to have an early warning system for the next humans to come.

At least, that was how she was justifying the cameras.

She started in Snowdin, only placing two around the town. He didn’t spend much time around there of his own volition, and neither did the humans.

A few people just watched, two in particular standing out to her. One looked to be a celestial-Sans would probably be able to identify their exact place in the night sky-and the other covered their entire body head to toe with a heavy orange poncho, tight black clothes and a smiling mask with cross shaped eyes. Their horns were the only visible thing she was sure belonged to them. 

They watched her, disapproving, though they spoke to one another in low voices and the one in the mask occasionally said something that made the celestial blush. Were they lovers? 

Other citizens were not as distant, and she cursed herself for not thinking of that beforehand. 

“Alphys! Do you have any news on my mother?”

“Why haven’t I heard anything about my son? Has he woken up?”

“Is the treatment almost done? I just want to see my wife again.”

“It’s my best friend’s birthday next week and...can you just give them this bone? Even if they haven’t woken up...”

Alphys fought off all of the grieving families and friends, wishing she hadn’t taken this on. Necromancy was never the easiest profession, but she usually only took one or twojobs at a time... and this was sixteen families, fourteen fallen.

She wasn’t ready for this. What had she been thinking? 

She couldn’t handle this responsibility.

...

Alphys narrowed her eyes at each entrance to the room, listening and looking for any sign of someone approaching over the rushing water and boulders flowing into the water below.

She needs to do some flying-not completely feral-but she knows that even minor form changes are the sort of thing that make other monsters gasp and point.

Most monsters don’t do it maliciously, but it’s still unpleasant.

She can’t hear or see anything coming, so she removes her lab coat and folds it up beside the bridge. She’d put on a tank top that showed off her protruding scapulae and she felt...bare. Exposed. It wasn’t like she could hide that she was drakin, but actively engaging with it in such a visible way wasn’t what she was used to doing. 

Her scapulae lengthen, the skin stretching as if the bone is pulling it along for the ride. It forms two joints, a hard ridge with soft membrane between them. The skin begins to harden into little bumps, then raise into blue spikes at her joints.

Her eyes fill with black, but she holds the electricity back; if it touched the water it might fry most of Waterfall.

She spreads her wings and flies to the top of the waterfall, giving the constantly falling boulders a wide berth. At the top, she creates a magical dam, reinforcing it every time a boulder smashes into it until it can withstand multiple hits and she is sure there will be no water in the center of the waterfall while she sets the camera up.

Once she’s done, she removes the dam and flies to the bridge to watch the water and make sure none of it gets to the camera. 

She shifts her wings away, hearing voices on the distance, then the words repeated in the same voice; someone was probabilities talking an echo flower.

Alphys runs a hand over her snout. It’s been a stressful day and she wonders if she could use an echo flower conversation or two. She certainly couldn’t use the public ones, but she knows of a room where Sans keeps an echo flower alone, with a bench he’d built himself in better times.

-

Grillby and Dantalion had watched the cameras being installed and they were not pleased with the addition to their town.

“Well, that is unfortunate!” Dantalion says, far too cheerily.

“Yes. I have no clue what those could be for...”

“I suppose I will be awfully well-acquainted with the inside of my mask by the time we leave here.”

“I can’t imagine how this could be considered proper.”

“Oh, I doubt it’s for me. I am simply not important enough for all this effort. It is an unpleasant side effect. Although...”They tap their mouth with one hand, exposing their other, frankly unnecessary arms.

“Yes?”

“What point is there in pretending I am not a demon? If you are seen as a demon and I live with you, will I not be seen as a demon? Perhaps I already am.”

“There is a difference between being known as a demon and having people you do not trust seeing your true face.”

“I guess that’s why you don’t walk around with your wings out.” 

“Mostly because I can’t fly anyway and an eight foot wingspan isn’t exactly ideal on the kitchen.”

“No? What a shame! I’ve heard you’re quite beautiful in your true form.”

Grillby flushes green.

“...You have?”

“Of course! Not to imply that you are inferior in your current state-“

Grillby laughs.

“Please, there is no need to flatter me.” 

Dantalion chuckled.

“I can’t help myself. You’re so stunning! Do you know that I can’t be bothered to flirt with people at your bar because of you? I thought these folks would be less discerning but you have spoiled them!”

“It’s a tragedy, truly. How could I do this to you, my only cousin. The only cousin I have.”

They both giggle like children, and watch half a dozen people surround the Royal Scientist with questions about their loved ones. They decide to go back to the bar, the scene becoming a bit too somber for them.

As they reach the door, Dantalion smiles devilishly.

“So, when is Apollyon going to meet your soulmate?”

-

The people are fearful. A monster has been seen around the town and nobody knows how to respond.

Asnoch has been keeping his distance, and things aren’t going like they usually do. Humans are avoiding him, not confronting him.

Frisk sits at Ruth’s coffee table, sipping tea and bouncing their leg nervously. Ruth looks out the window every once in a while. 

There’s so much tension in the air that finally Frisk has to break the silence...or something near enough to it.

“How did you meet him?”

“Asnoch?”

Who else?

“Before that whole...flowers showing up wherever he is thing, Asnoch was a blacksmith. So am I. I was lucky enough to meet him through work. I had no idea when I met him that I was talking to the future king of monsters, I just knew that he was a stick in the mud and I told him so.”

Frisk laughed. Yeah. That sounds like her. They don’t know what to say next and lapse back into silence.

They look out the window again, nervous about the silence, nervous about the possibility of hearing a scream in the distance.

“What changed your mind during the war?”

Ruth glanced at the window too, then let out a long breath.

“That village you live in right now wasn’t burned out before the war. I was here when it happened and I was the first up that mountain.

...

Ruth heard the water cannons surrounding the town pop on and spray something at around midnight.

She jumped to her feet and snatched up Dragontamer, unsure if there was an attack coming. Halfway out the door, she saw a horrible sight.

A creature made of light and fire flew across the sky, shrieking as it was hit flying over Mount Ebbott.

It crashed into the mountainside in a plume of flame. Ruth gasped and ran. She didn’t even think about it, she just committed to the mountain path, to that village on the top.

And if she should happen to find that monster still alive, well. Her and Dragontamer could take care of that.

...

There was nothing left of the village by the time she got there. Only one building was still burning, the rest in cinders. The air felt like soup going through her lungs and there was a smell of burning flesh, despite nobody being visible outside their homes.

Ruth stood, panting and weeping a few feet down the path, not knowing what to do. There was nothing left to save.

Something moved in the fire, unnatural in form and action. It pulled forward, then separated from the rest of the flame.

It was humanoid in form and dragged itself across the ground, flames turning a ruddy red before extinguishing. After a second of thought, she knew it couldn’t be human and she approached it, holding Dragontamer aloft as a pair of weak-looking wings sprouted from its back.

The monster watched her with a sort of hopelessness that gave her pause. It didn’t even move, its fan-shaped head tilted toward her and its white eyes unblinking.

She shook her head, raised the blade again, then jumped back when a ring of fire burst from the charred black earth.

She narrowed her eyes at the weakened figure, then squatted to meet one of the white eyes.

“You know other humans are coming, don’t you?”

The creature nodded, drawing its knees up and curling its wings around itself.

“Why did you come here?”

“It doesn’t matter. I will die no matter what I say.”

The flame faded for a second, then came back stronger.

She lay Dragontamer across her lap.

“Listen, there are things worse than death that...I’ve heard of happening, even at my own base. If you’re some sort of scout, we need to know, but if you tell me the truth now, I can kill you quickly. It’ll be a kind of mercy.” 

It laughed, hollowly.

“A very human way to see mercy. You’ve already done worse than kill me. There is nothing you can do to get me to talk; I am already dead.”

What the hell was she meant to say to that?

“I can help you. Just tell me what you’re doing-“

“Did you not hear me? I’m a dead man already. What you do to me does not matter. Even if I get away from you, my wife is going to kill me anyway.”

A man, then. A stab of pity ran through her as she realized he’d just admitted to being abused; not in specific terms, but she knew enough.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” She asked, forgetting for a millisecond what had happened in the past few months.

His eyes began to glow as he struggled to his feet.

“ _Do not_ pretend to be kind to me!”

She put a hand on the hilt of Dragontamer.

“Why not?”

“ _You took my child!_ ” The creature shrieked, the flames roaring higher around him as he stumbled forward, sending sloppy jets of flame toward her before he collapsed to his knees. He lay there trembling for a long time before speaking.

“If you truly want to be merciful, please, tell me why you’re doing this to us.”

“We have no reason to take your kid. Is this why you’re here?”

“I’m going to die anyway. What is the harm in giving me some small comfort before it happens?” He didn’t respond to her question, but she knew that was it. 

“No, I’m serious. No reason we would take a child, unless we found them alone. How old w...how old are they?”

“I had her three days ago.”

“She’s been missing three days?”

He shook his head.

“I gave birth three days ago.”

“She’s a newborn?”

He nodded, his eyes closed and he curled himself up more. The fire died out around his body. He trembled, but didn’t open his eyes.

Without the crackling fire, she could hear footsteps and voices on the way up, very close by.

“I know she’s probably dead. So you might as well so me a favour. You’d kill me gentler than her.”

“Your wife?”

“Yes.”

She watches his pulsing light for a minute before turning away.

She points to a path leading away, far from the city she came from.

“Go find your daughter. I won’t talk about you. Just, move quickly and hide if they get close. They will look for you. And take care of yourself.”

...

“I never saw him again. I...don’t know if he ever found her. I don’t know if he went back to his wife. I...hope he’s still out there. I hope he’s happy, wherever he is, with his daughter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit’s been hard you get the gist  
> I’m working a lot through my pain, so I can only type for a certain amount of time a day and spend most of my time sleeping or wishing I was asleep, but I finally finished this.
> 
> If you like this and have money you want to throw at me, I have a ko-fi:   
> ko-fi.com/dweebicusmaximus


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